Musar su Isaia 6:78

And the seventh principle is whole-hearted submission and lowliness. For the one who knows his Creator knows how one who transgresses His words is crooked and lowly - so he is lowered in his worth, like the matter that is stated (Psalms 15:4), "for whom a contemptible man is abhorrent." And it is [also] stated, (Job 15:16), "What then of one loathsome and foul man, who drinks wrongdoing like water"; [and] (Jeremiah 6:30), "They are called rejected silver." Therefore he will be submissive and lowly in his [own] eyes. And when King David, peace be upon him, confessed after Nathan the prophet came to him, he said at the end of his words (Psalms 51:19), "True sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit; God, You will not despise a contrite and crushed heart" - "a contrite spirit" is a lowly spirit. From this we have learned that submission is from the principles of repentance, since this psalm is wholly founded upon the principles of repentance. And with submission, a man is acceptable to God, as it is stated (Isaiah 66:2), "To the poor and brokenhearted." And it is stated about the matter of repentance, (Isaiah 57:14-15), "[The Lord] says, 'Build up, build up a highway, etc.' For thus said He who high aloft forever dwells, whose name is holy, 'I dwell on high, in holiness; yet with the contrite and the lowly in spirit - reviving the spirits of the lowly, reviving the hearts of the contrite." We learn [also from here] that submission is from the principles of repentance. And likewise does the entire remainder of this section speak about penitents: "For I will not always contend, etc. For their sinful greed I was angry, etc. I see their ways, and I will heal them and I will guide them, etc." (Isaiah 57:16-18). Its explanation is, I see that their ways are [grounded] in submission, as it stated, "yet with the contrite and the lowly in spirit"; and with bitter-heartedness, as it stated (Isaiah 57:16), "when spirits in front of Me cover themselves"; "and I will heal them," as I will forgive his iniquity, like [in] (Hosea 14:5), "I will heal their affliction," [and in] (Isaiah 6:10), "and repent and save itself"; "and I will guide them" - I will help him to leave the sin, and give him strength against his impulse.

And from all this we can understand the greatness of the hatred that the Holy One Blessed be He bears to the "teller." For though the father strikes his son, being compelled to do the teller's will, understanding the thing to be true — in any event, great hatred is aroused in his heart against the teller, recognizing that his motive is not to benefit his son, but to censure him. How much more so is this true in our case. For it is known that the Holy One Blessed be He loves a man more than he loves himself, and He desires only the good of Israel, and that they not be slandered at all. As Chazal have said on Isaiah 6:6: "And in his [the angel's] hand, a coal [ritzpah]," the Holy One Blessed be He saying to the angel: "Let the mouth be crushed [("retzotz peh," like "ritzpah")] that slandered My sons." And the speaker of lashon hara causes the opposite of all this [(love between G-d and His children)], for which reason he is detested in the eyes of the L-rd.

This is the great evil which envelopes them and clings to them, carrying them to the abyss of destruction. This is what scripture states: "the heart of this people has become fattened, and its ears heavy, their eyes covered shut; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn back, and be healed" (Isaiah 6:10).

The differences in atonement
In the same way as the body has sicknesses and ailments, so too does the soul. And the ailments of the soul and its diseases are its evil traits and its sins. But when an evildoer repents from his evil path, God, may He be blessed, heals the soul of the sinner - as it is stated (Psalms 41:5), “O Lord, have mercy on me, heal my soul, for I have sinned against You.” And it is [also] stated (Isaiah 6:10), “and repent and save itself.” And in the way that it is sometimes found with the sicknesses of the body that the sickness lightens itself from upon one, as does the length of most of the ailments, but the body is not cleansed of it without drinking a bitter drink and suffering further by afflicting his soul from [eating] all desirable food; so too is it with the soul sick from great iniquity: And even though most of the sickness is healed, and most parts of the punishment are removed after the repentance - and God, may He be blessed, has gone away from His anger - the soul will not yet be cleansed from the sickness and its sin will not be atoned until the sinner is made to suffer with afflictions, purified with pain and with bad and difficult things that happen to him. [This is] like the matter that is stated (Genesis 4:13-14), “My punishment is too great to bear! Since You have banished me this day from the soil, and I must avoid Your presence; and I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth; and it will come to pass, that whoever finds me will kill me.” However through repentance, most of his iniquity was forgiven, the main part of his punishment was removed and he was rescued from death - as it is stated (Genesis 4:15), “and the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest anyone who met him should kill him.” But the punishment of exile remained for him, as it is stated (Genesis 4:12), “and I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth.” Yet he had mentioned [his] migration with a double expression (fugitive and wanderer); whereas after the repentance, it is [only] stated (Genesis 4:16), “and he dwelt in the land of wandering.”

For after this has become clear to them and likewise after it has become clear to them that the means to perfection are good deeds and traits, they will certainly never consent to diminish these means or be lenient in them. Since, it has already become clear to them that if they diminish in these means or are weak in these means, not employing the full force necessary, they will not attain the true perfection. Rather, it will be reduced in proportion to their reduction in exerting themselves to the necessary extent, leaving them lacking in perfection which is a great calamity and great evil to them.

The pinnacle of this level called "fear of sin", one of the greatest levels, is when a man is constantly afraid and worried lest he have in his hand some trace of sin which obstructs him from the perfection that he is under duty to strive for.

Regarding this our Sages of blessed memory said: "this teaches each person is burned from the Chupa (canopy) of his fellow" (Bava Basra 75a). This [burning] does not refer to jealousy which falls only to people lacking in understanding as I will explain with G-d's help. Rather, it is due to seeing oneself lacking from the perfection that he was capable of attaining just as his fellow had attained it.

Thus when the penitent man recognizes his sin and admits it, and reflects on his evil, repents of it and completely regrets ever having done it, as he would regret [in annulling] a certain vow, in which case there is complete regret, and he desires and longs that this deed had never been committed, and pains himself strongly that the matter was done, and renounces it for the future, and flees from it - then the uprooting of the deed from his will is counted to him as the annulment of a vow and he gains atonement for it. As scripture says: "your iniquity is gone and your sin atoned for" (Isaiah 6:7) - that the sin is actually removed from existence, and uprooted through his paining himself and regretting in the present what he had done in the past.

It is written, “And you shall love your fellow as yourself” (Vayikra 19:18). The Sages have remarked that this verse is a fundamental principle of the Torah (Toras Kohanim, Parashas Kedoshim 4). And there is no greater display of love than the mandatory rebuking of one’s Jewish brother if he sees in him some unseemly matter, that is, a sin or transgression. For the souls of all Israel are intimately connected to one another. But the guideline for this rebuke is that if one understands the tribulations, effects and punishments that the soul of a person is subjected to after it leaves the body, he must inform him. For perhaps through this his companion will also have the merit to abandon his evil path, and then he will see the fulfillment of the verse, “He will return and heal him” (Yeshayahu 6:10).

The second detrimental factor, laughter and levity, is very severe. For one who is immersed in these is like one immersed in the great sea, from which it is extremely difficult to escape. For behold, laughter destroys a man's heart until reason and knowledge no longer rule in him. He becomes like a drunkard or a madman whereby it is impossible to give counsel or guide them for they are incapable of accepting any direction.

Behold, the prophet Isaiah would "scream like a crane" for he saw that this was what left no room for his rebukes to make an impression thus ruining all hope for the sinners. This is what he said: "And now do not be mockers lest your afflictions be strengthened" (Isaiah 28:22).

In the preceding chapters we spoke about the individual. How much more so must one take great heed not to impute liability to Israel in general, for this sin is very severe. As we find in Pesachim 87b on Proverbs 30:10 "'Speak not ill of a servant to his master… a generation that curses its father and does not bless its mother.' …Even a generation that curses its father and does not bless its mother — do not speak ill of it to its Master — the Holy One Blessed be He." And see now [the instance of] Isaiah the prophet. When he saw the glory of the L-rd and said (Isaiah 6:5): "Woe unto me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips; and in the midst of a people of unclean lips do I dwell, etc." — because he said "and in the midst of a people of unclean lips," even though his intent in this was not to shame Israel, (for he said this also of himself) but only to say that he was not worthy of seeing the Shechinah, neither in point of his deeds nor of those of the people in whose midst he dwelt — in spite of this, see what follows (Ibid. 6): "Then one of the seraphs flew unto me [Isaiah] and in his hand was a live coal [ritzpah]," concerning which Chazal say that "ritzpah" is acronymic of "retzoth peh" ["crush the mouth"] that slanders My children." And he died as a result of this, as they say in Yevamoth 49b: "[He (Isaiah) uttered the Name and was 'swallowed up' in a cedar.] the cedar was brought and sawed. When it [the saw] came to his mouth, he died, [this, for having said 'And in the midst of a people of unclean lips do I dwell.']"

In the preceding chapters we spoke about the individual. How much more so must one take great heed not to impute liability to Israel in general, for this sin is very severe. As we find in Pesachim 87b on Proverbs 30:10 "'Speak not ill of a servant to his master… a generation that curses its father and does not bless its mother.' …Even a generation that curses its father and does not bless its mother — do not speak ill of it to its Master — the Holy One Blessed be He." And see now [the instance of] Isaiah the prophet. When he saw the glory of the L-rd and said (Isaiah 6:5): "Woe unto me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips; and in the midst of a people of unclean lips do I dwell, etc." — because he said "and in the midst of a people of unclean lips," even though his intent in this was not to shame Israel, (for he said this also of himself) but only to say that he was not worthy of seeing the Shechinah, neither in point of his deeds nor of those of the people in whose midst he dwelt — in spite of this, see what follows (Ibid. 6): "Then one of the seraphs flew unto me [Isaiah] and in his hand was a live coal [ritzpah]," concerning which Chazal say that "ritzpah" is acronymic of "retzoth peh" ["crush the mouth"] that slanders My children." And he died as a result of this, as they say in Yevamoth 49b: "[He (Isaiah) uttered the Name and was 'swallowed up' in a cedar.] the cedar was brought and sawed. When it [the saw] came to his mouth, he died, [this, for having said 'And in the midst of a people of unclean lips do I dwell.']"

But if a man is visited by sufferings, illness, troubles, or if he is exiled from his land, let him know that the Creator loves Him and corrects him as a man corrects his son. But if he sees that he is tranquil and confident without sufferings and illnesses and that he remains at peace and no trials come upon him, let him know that the Creator does not love him. Moreover, if he sees that his heart is hardened and uncharitable, or he does not fast to remember the day of judgment, and that when he sees people die, he does not reflect in his heart concerning the day of death, this is a great sign that, “Their eyes are bedaubed⁴³This is a paraphrase of Isaiah 44:18. lest they, seeing with their eyes, and hearing with their ears, and understanding with their heart, return and be healed.”⁴⁴This is based on Isaiah 6:10. When an evil decree is enforced against the people of the city, or against a nation, and he escapes from it, let him know that the Creator loves him and has shown his superiority over the others. Similarly, if the people of the city or a nation are altogether wicked and they walk in the obstinacy of their hearts, while this man’s eyes are opened and he stirs from his sleep and does not turn to those wicked people, but hastens to do complete repentance, this is a sign of the will of his God, that he has found favor in His eyes. Similarly, if he was extreme in his evil deeds, and did all things abominable to God and angered his God, but afterwards aroused himself and forsook all his evil deeds and removed all the evil from his heart, without fear⁴⁵Hoffman’s German translation understood this as "without a teacher.", except the fear of his God, because God inspired him with fear of Him, this is a great sign of the love of the Creator, blessed be He, and that He will have pity on him because he has removed the heart of stone from his flesh, and God has given to him a heart of flesh and His spirit he has given within him. There is no greater good than this! It is similar when sickness comes upon a man and he reaches the gates of death, and afterwards is spared, that is a sign of the love of the Creator, blessed be He, and that He has pity upon him, and that He wanted to warn him in order that he might turn away from his evil. But if a man commits blasphemies and is advanced in age and still does not repent, but clings to his wickedness, and if he advances in age and grows older, his lusts continue to renew themselves, he begins to build houses and to deal much in merchandise and to amass money from robbery, more than he did in the days of his youth, this is a great sign that the Creator rejects him, and therefore does not arouse him to repentance and does not correct him. He lets him go on in the stubbornness of his heart, as it is said (Psalms 81:13), “So I let them go after the stubbornness of their heart that they might walk in their own counsels.” Similarly, if a man gives alms, or fulfills some commandment and then regrets it, all the more so if there was great effort expended in fulfilling the commandment, and he loathes the doing of it after he has done it, this is a great sign that the heart of his God is not set upon him, and that he does not find favor in His eyes, and that all of his expenditure of energy was in vain. It is the same if he does a sin and completes it and rejoices in it very much and has no remorse for having done it, but his desire is to do it a second time, this is a sign that the Creator, blessed be He, has turned His face from him.

And it is known that the withholding of honor from the Holy One Blessed be He because of the fools who have denied Him or rebelled against Him and said: "What profit [is ours] that we have kept His keeping [i.e., His mitzvoth]?" — such dishonor obtains only in this terrestrial, material world, where "eyes" are those of flesh. But in the higher world, all the angels crown the Blessed One's name and proclaim His glory — how He vivifies and leads them. As Scripture states (Nechemiah, Ibid.): "And the host of the heavens bow down to You." And (I Kings 22:14): "I saw the L-rd sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing before Him, on His right and on His left." (Isaiah 6:2-3): "Seraphs were standing above Him … and one called to the other and said: 'Holy, Holy, Holy is the L-rd of hosts [tzevaoth],'" for which reason the Holy One Blessed be He is called "Tzevakoth," as we find throughout the Torah. And when we reflect well, we see in truth that this world is not even like a mustard seed compared to all of the higher worlds. (For there are many worlds on high, as Chazal have said (Avodah Zarah 3b) that every day the Holy One Blessed be He soars through all His eighteen thousand worlds, and, especially, in respect to what is explained in the holy Zohar in many places.) So that their "rebellion," G-d forbid, is considered naught. And in this world, the Holy One Blessed be He found His people Israel, who are especially beloved by Him — so much so, that they are called "sons" unto Him, viz. (Devarim 14:1): "You are sons, etc." And their voice is sweet to Him, viz. Song of Songs 2:14: "Let Me hear your voice." How, then, can we not be ashamed of ourselves if we do not trust, G-d forbid, in His name, which vivifies all of the worlds? And of all the angels, of whom there are found tens of thousands of them in each class, not one of the celestial angels, from the time the Holy One Blessed be He created all of the worlds, has descended, G-d forbid, to apprise us that he is lacking some of the Divine effluence. And it is known that there are angels whose size is several thousand parasangs, as Chazal have said in Chullin 91b, that the size of Gavriel was two thousand parasangs, this being deduced from what is written in Daniel (10:6) when he [Daniel] saw the angel, viz. "And his body was like [the Sea of] Tarshish," (which is two thousand parasangs.) And there are angels who are much taller, as stated in Chazal (Chagigah 13b) about Sandalfon that he was five hundred years "walking distance" taller than his fellows [(The walking distance of an average man is ten parasangs a day.)] And this little man [in this world], who is not even [the size of] a mustard seed compared to them — how can he constantly fret and worry: "Whence will come my livelihood and whence will come my help!" When we reflect upon this well, we should be astonished much more about ourselves in this than we are astonished at the fool in connection with the bird! There is nothing left for us to do but to gird ourselves with strength and do His will without worrying at all, just as the King's son need not worry that he will be left without a loaf of bread, as it is written (Devarim 14:1): "You are sons to the L-rd your G-d."

We must try and understand why Rabbenu Bachyah was so selective in his comparison of the creation with the construction of the Tabernacle. He could have cited additional parallels. A look at a lengthy Midrash in Shemot Rabbah 33,4 quotes Rabbi Berechyah as presenting a long list of parallels between the Tabernacle and מעשה בראשית. The list includes many items found in the heavens such as ערפל, זבול, עצי שטים, כרובים, אופנים and many others. In each case Rabbi Berechyah demonstrates that the Tabernacle contained something parallel.

We must try and understand why Rabbenu Bachyah was so selective in his comparison of the creation with the construction of the Tabernacle. He could have cited additional parallels. A look at a lengthy Midrash in Shemot Rabbah 33,4 quotes Rabbi Berechyah as presenting a long list of parallels between the Tabernacle and מעשה בראשית. The list includes many items found in the heavens such as ערפל, זבול, עצי שטים, כרובים, אופנים and many others. In each case Rabbi Berechyah demonstrates that the Tabernacle contained something parallel.

We have now learned that the three parts of the Tabernacle correspond to the three parts of the universe concerning which King David said in Psalms 103,20: "Bless the Lord, O, His angels, mighty creatures who do His bidding, ever obedient to His bidding. Bless the Lord all His hosts, His servants who do His will; bless the Lord all His works, through the length and breadth of His realm." David's son Solomon also adopted his father's outlook when he alluded to this in three consecutive verses in Song of Songs 5,13-15. Three different parts of the human body form the subject of those verses, each one representing a different aspect of the universe and how man's composition reflects this division of the universe into three constituent parts. I (Rabbenu Bachyah) have explained this in detail when I discussed Jacob's dream of the ladder." Thus far the quotation from Rabbenu Bachyah.

This is what scripture says: "the whole earth is full of His glory" (Isaiah 6:3), and "Do I not fill heaven and earth?" (Yirmiyahu 23:24), and "Who is like the L-rd, our G-d, enthroned on high, who stoops to look down on the heavens and the earth?" (Tehilim 113:5-6), and "though the L-rd is high, yet He sees the lowly, and the proud He knows from afar" (Tehilim 138:6).

The matter of holiness is dual. Its beginning is service [of G-d] while its end is reward; its beginning is exertion while its end is a [divine] gift. That is, its beginning is that which a man sanctifies himself, while its end is his being sanctified. This is what our sages, of blessed memory, said: "if a man sanctifies himself a little, he becomes much sanctified. If he sanctifies himself below, he becomes sanctified from above" (Yomah 39a).

We find the same idea in Isaiah 6,8, when G–d asks "whom shall I send, and who will go?" The words "who will go for us" signal that G–d does not want to be associated exclusively with a שליחות לרעה (The subject matter was the wasting of cities, etc.).

As we have said, the measurements of such physical phenomena gradually decrease until only a single cubit remains. This cubit which comprises 6 handsbreadths corresponds to the 6 wings with which each of the angels that we read about in Isaiah 6,2 were equipped. Those angels developed "downwards," to eventually form the 70 שרים representing the 70 Gentile nations in the Celestial Spheres which we have called the army of the Heavens. It is said of G–d (Isaiah 40,12) that He established the Heavens with a זרת, the span between the thumb and little finger. When Avital the scribe mentioned the אמה+זרת as the size of Pharaoh's male member, he alluded to the שר של מצרים and the fact that he had some influence in the Celestial Regions. We, the Jewish people, extend to the ראש העליון.

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."