Quotation su Salmi 34:24

[Introductory poem from the Rambam]

[Introductory poem from the Rambam]

O fear the Lord, ye his holy ones; for there is no want to them that fear him. Young lions do lack and suffer hunger: but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good. O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good: for his lovingkindness endureth for ever. Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest every living thing with favor. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose trust the Lord is. I have been young and now I am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging for bread. The Lord will give strength unto his people; the Lord will bless his people with peace.

O fear the Lord, ye his holy ones; for there is no want to them that fear him. Young lions do lack and suffer hunger: but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good. O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good: for his lovingkindness endureth for ever. Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest every living thing with favor. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose trust the Lord is. I have been young and now I am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging for bread. The Lord will give strength unto his people; the Lord will bless his people with peace.

And all this, when he is powerless to protest and to quiet the quarrel. But if the son finds favor with his father and is able to quiet the quarrel and keeps silent, he is punished because of this. As we find in Tanna d'bei Eliyahu 21: "And a man should not look on when he sees his parents engaging in idle talk [(i.e., lashon hara and the like, and, how much more so, machloketh, which subsumes all)], and remain silent. And if he does, both he and they do not live out their days and years. And, likewise, it is a mitzvah for every man to make peace between the sides. And this [(making peace)] is one of those things whose fruits a man eats in this world, with the principal remaining for the world to come, as we find in Peah 1. And even if he sees that the din is not in accordance with one party and that they deserve to be punished for the machloketh, but he is able [to suppress it], even so, he should make every effort to make peace between the sides. And he should not be lax in doing so even if he is the most eminent man in Israel, as we find (Numbers 16:25): "And Moses arose and went to Dathan and Aviram [to make peace]." And Chazal have said (Sanhedrin 110a): "From here we derive that it is forbidden to persist in machloketh." And in the Midrash we find: "Because Moses went to the [tent] entrance of Dathan and Aviram, he merited rescuing four tzaddikim from the entrance of Gehinnom: the three sons of Korach and On ben Peleth." And it is written (Psalms 34:15): "Seek peace and pursue it," concerning which Chazal have said: "Seek it for your loved one and pursue it with your foe. Seek it in your place and pursue it in other places. Seek it with your body and pursue it with your possessions. Seek it for yourself and pursue it for others. Seek it today and pursue it tomorrow." The intent of the Midrash in "and pursue it tomorrow" is: Let one not despair of making peace, but let him pursue it today and also tomorrow and also the day after until he attains it. For even the stoutest of cart ropes, if it is constantly worn down, will weaken and snap in the end. Here, too. Even if one does not succeed the first or second time, let him not abandon this holy trait [of pursuing peace]. And even if his efforts do not succeed at all with the parties to the machloketh themselves, the trait of "triumphing" having overpowered them and their eyes having been blinded to the truth, still, this will deter the "outsiders," who are not parties in the machloketh, but who have been drawn into it by the evil counsel of the parties involved, and will save them from bitter punishment, as in the instance of Moses our teacher, may peace be upon him.