וַיַּ֨עַן לָבָ֜ן וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֶֽל־יַעֲקֹ֗ב הַבָּנ֨וֹת בְּנֹתַ֜י וְהַבָּנִ֤ים בָּנַי֙ וְהַצֹּ֣אן צֹאנִ֔י וְכֹ֛ל אֲשֶׁר־אַתָּ֥ה רֹאֶ֖ה לִי־ה֑וּא וְלִבְנֹתַ֞י מָֽה־אֶֽעֱשֶׂ֤ה לָאֵ֙לֶּה֙ הַיּ֔וֹם א֥וֹ לִבְנֵיהֶ֖ן אֲשֶׁ֥ר יָלָֽדוּ׃
라반이 야곱에게 대답하여 가로되 딸들은 내 딸이요 자식들은 내 자식이요 양떼는 나의 양떼요 네가 보는 것은 다 내 것이라 내가 오늘날 내 딸들과 그 낳은 자식들에게 어찌할수 있으랴
Peirush Hafla'ah
Continuing the earlier discussion regarding Laban, Horowitz relates this question to Lurianic Kabbalah. According to Isaac Luria, or the Ari as he is often called, Israel’s exile was necessary for the cosmic redemption of the world. Horowitz draws on the Lurianic myth of creation (tzimtuzum), the breaking of the vessels (shevirat hakeilim), and the redemption of the divine sparks (nitzotzot) which had an honored place in Hasidic thought as well. According to Luria, a cosmic catastrophe took place at the time of creation. God figuratively withdrew from the universe in order to make room for creation but allowed His sparks to be contained in ‘earthly vessels.’ The divine sparks, however, were too powerful and caused the vessels to shatter and the divine sparks to scatter throughout the world. Hidden amid the evil and darkness of the world, then, are divine sparks. It is the job of the Jewish people to redeem these sparks wherever they are found and to allow them to return to their divine source in order to bring redemption to the world. The exile of the Jewish people, then, is a necessary part of redeeming the sparks - nitzotzot. Sin causes the sparks to remain hidden in the world while mitzvot reveal these hidden sparks. What is interesting is that the myth of divine sparks is very specific and even mathematical – there are 288 sparks hidden in creation. Jacob’s exile in Aram and his descendents exile in Egypt were all part of the process of freeing the sparks. These numbers are arrived at through complex gematriot and numerical calculations. Horowitz will return to the Lurianic myth many times in his understanding of the Exodus. Israel’s servitude is all about redeeming the sparks that are trapped in Egypt.
Laban sought to exterminate all of them – even the females: When Laban confronted Jacob following his flight from Aram, Laban said: “The girls are my daughters and the children are my children…all that you see is mine!” (Genesis 31:43) God warned Laban not to harm Jacob but said nothing about Jacob’s offspring. Laban felt compassion for his daughters and their children but his intention was ultimately to destroy future generations of their children. This is implied by his statement above; he is saying, in effect, “Your wives and children are really mine and I can do with them as I wish!” Later, in Egypt, Laban’s son would become one of Pharaoh’s advisors who would suggest wiping out both the male and female Israelites. Balaam ben Beor33The Midrash suggests that Pharaoh had three advisors regarding the Israelites: Laban’s son who called for the total destruction of Israel; Job who remained silent and did not advise Pharaoh one way or another; and Jethro who discouraged Pharaoh and then fled from Egypt to save himself. is really the son of Laban (Beor is another name for Laban).
Laban’s intentions had to do with the divine sparks which fill the world. According to the Kabbalists, there are 288 sparks that fell into the mundane world and were mixed in with the shards which were created at the time of creation. The role of Israel in the world is to redeem these sparks and to return them to their Divine source. Laban was intent on preventing Jacob from accomplishing this task. The gematriah of Rachel and Leah are 274; when we add the eleven sons of Jacob that were born in Laban’s house along with Jacob’s daughter, Dinah, as well as the two concubines, Bilhah and Zilpah, the number adds up to 288 – the nitzotzot, the divine sparks. This number is hinted at in God’s warning to Laban: “Beware of attempting anything with Jacob, good (tov) or bad (ra). The gematiah of these two words along with the two words as one expression is also 288; that is, God actually warned Laban not to interfere with the divine sparks that Jacob was in the process of freeing. It was for this reason that initially, Laban only wanted to give Jacob Leah (gematriah, 36) as a wife which would have left 252 sparks in his control, which is the gematriah of the word Arami. When he was forced to give Jacob his second daughter, Rachel, he was left with 14 sparks. This is hinted at in the expression, Arami oved Avi, Laban, the Arami, wished to destroy Avi, the last 14 divine sparks.34If you do the math you will note that the numbers are off by one in several cases. This does not trouble practitioners of gematriah since the word itself is counted as one, thus increasing the value of the word.
What we see here in Jacob’s exile and later in the exile of the people of Israel to the land of Egypt, is that it ultimately served a good purpose. It is necessary for the people to be in exile to redeem the divine sparks hidden among the nations. God is entirely good but goodness is expressed through many different avenues. Also nothing happens without God’s decree. The divine sparks descended into the world because of the sin at the tree of knowledge, the sins of the generation of the flood, and because of the tower of Babel, as the Zohar and other sources explain. Despite the misfortune that resulted from these events, we are commanded to bless God for the good as well as the evil in our lives because what appears to us as misfortune ultimately serves a higher purpose that brings us closer to redemption. We must, therefore, give thanks for the exiles which we have suffered, just as we give thanks for the redemptions which have experienced.
It is for this reason that we begin the Seder by saying, “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt.” We praise God for having made us slaves just as we praise God, “who took us out of there.” Similarly, this is the reason we eat bitter herbs at the Seder to give thanks for the bitterness of slavery just as we give thanks for the freedom we gained. We also say, “At first our ancestors were idolaters…” to remind ourselves that the purpose of exile was to lift up the divine sparks which fell (into the world) through the sin of our ancestors.
We have pointed out elsewhere that the gematriah of rekhush gadol, great wealth35The Torah tells us that Israel left Egypt with great wealth. Since the gematriah of this expression is the same as the Tree of Knowledge, the implication is that the great wealth was the sparks from the tree of knowledge through which Adam and Eve sinned!, is 569. When we add the number 70 (the number of people who went down to Egypt with Jacob) i t has the same gematriah as the expression “etz hada’at,” the tree of knowledge (639). Thus, when Israel left Egypt, they took with them the sparks that were scattered when Adam and Eve sinned by eating the fruit of the etz hada’at, tree of knowledge. There are many allusions to the redemption of the divine sparks when the Israelites left Egypt. The word “mitei” in the expression mitei mispar k‘mi’at, “few in number,” has the same gematriah as the words etz pri, “the fruit of the tree” (450) and the word mi’at, few, is made up of the same letters as the word ta’am, taste; this is an allusion to the teaching that the “fruit” of the tree of knowledge and the tree itself were both sweet in taste.36This is an allusion to the idea that the tree of knowledge was not a tree at all but a source of enlightenment and knowledge.
The three signs which God gave Moses before he returned to the land of Egypt are also an allusion that the purpose of the Exodus was to redeem the lost divine sparks. The first sign was to turn his staff into a serpent – an allusion to the serpent in the Garden of Eden. The second sign was to make his hand leprous when he removed it from his cloak – an allusion to the tower of Babel. The sin of the tower of Babel was evil speech and leprosy was the punishment of those who gossip about others. And the third sign, turning water to blood, was an allusion to the flood. Through these three signs Moses would be able to convince the people of Israel that the Exodus was all about redeeming the sparks that were lost because of these three sins.
Why was Pharaoh’s intention to kill the males and not the females? First one must understand the hidden meaning of the terms used in this narrative. Male and female are allusions to the divine sparks. “Male” and “female” are references to khochma (wisdom) and binah (understanding), the masculine and feminine attributes of the divine in the sephirotic system. Jacob initially went down to Laban to redeem the lost sparks. The verse, “I took your father from beyond the river,” (Joshua, 24:2-4) is a reference to feminine aspect of the divine, binah, which is called a flowing river (since all the other Sephirot flow forth from it). The people on the other side of the river are called b‘nai kedem, since the kodem, precedes the river just as khochma precedes binah. Thus, the journey to the land of Canaan, across the river, by Abraham and then by Jacob, is really an allegory about the redemption of the divine sparks lost in the world. Laban represents, the kelipot, the husks, into which the sparks were mixed. His name is made up of two parts. The first two letters, lamed bet (gematriah, 32) are a reference to the 32 paths of khochma, wisdom, while the final nun, is a reference to the 50 gates of purity that are associated with the attribute of binah, understanding.
Jacob, in his great wisdom, overcame Laban’s deceit and redeemed the “thirty two paths of khochma,” wisdom, when he fled from Laban. However, he was unable to redeem the “fifty gates of” purity associated with binah.37These two numbers are commonly associated with these two sephirot. The number 32 comes from Sefer Yetzirah and the number 50 is connected with the idea of there being fifty gates of impurity in Egypt. Therefore, he went down to Egypt to continue the redemption of the divine sparks. These fifty sparks had fallen into the deepest impurity, and until Israel descended into the impurity of Egypt, the sparks could not be redeemed. Thus we say, Laban, the Arami, sought to destroy Avi, but he went down to Egypt. Since Pharaoh already had control of the feminine sparks, he now sought to take control of the masculine sparks, the sparks of khochma, by killing the males. That is why the Torah repeatedly says that the heart (leiv) of Pharaoh was hardened. He sought to control the 32, lamed bet, paths of wisdom, khochma. How did Pharaoh plan to do this? By enticing the people of Israel to worship idols in Egypt, since idolatry would damage the attribute of khochma, divine wisdom. The turning point in the Exodus story comes with the fifth plague, cattle disease, since the Egyptians worshipped their cattle. Thus, when God struck their cattle, the divine sparks of wisdom we were redeemed from Egypt (because the Israelites would now see that the gods of the Egyptians were not gods at all). That is why the Haggadah says that the expression “With a mighty hand” is a reference to the fifth plague.38See page ________ It is for this reason that the expression in the Torah changes during this plague from “Pharaoh’s heart was hardened” to “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.” Although the battle was not over, Pharaoh was already defeated!
Pharaoh, then, did not decree against the females because it was unnecessary since they were already under the control of the Egyptians (since Jacob had not yet redeemed those sparks), but Pharaoh did make a decree against the males since he wished to have power over them. Moses, however, redeemed both male and female.
Another proof that Laban planned to kill both the male and females: Laban said to Jacob: “I have it in my power to do you harm; but the God of your father said to me last night, “Beware of attempting anything with Jacob, good or bad.””39Genesis 31:29This verse suggests that God only warned Laban regarding Jacob and not his family. When Laban says “The girls are my girls and their children are my children,” Laban implies that it was his intention to kill the woman and men. Because Jacob was able to free the divine sparks that were in his power he planned even greater evil against the offspring of Jacob. This also made the subjugation of the Israelites even worse in Egypt. That is why Moses said, “Ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has dealt worse with Your people, and You still have not delivered Your people.”40Exodus 5:23 Initially, Pharaoh tried to subjugate them with a peh rakh, delicately; only later did he subjugate them with force.41After Laban or his son advised him to do so, according to the Midrash. The 288 divine sparks were mixed in with the husks of evil that were spread throughout the land of Egypt. The words Tov v‘Rah, good and evil, have the same gematriah. 42The gematriah only adds up to 288 if one adds the ‘kollel’ the expression to the number. Thus, when Laban says I have it in my power to do good and evil – he is really speaking about the divine sparks. When Jacob separated the adarim, flocks, thus arranging to take some for himself from Laban, he is really arranging to take the divine sparks. Adar’im equals 274. We add to this number the 12 sons of Jacob and Dinah making 287. There is still one spark short in this accounting, just as there is one short in the gematriah of tov v‘rah. Similarly the word avi, as in “An Aramean sought to destroy avi, my father, is also 13, referring to the sons and daughter of Jacob.43So where is the extra spark since all these numbers come to 287? This could suggest that even after the flight and redemption from Laban the process of redeeming the sparks was still not done.
Laban sought to exterminate all of them – even the females: When Laban confronted Jacob following his flight from Aram, Laban said: “The girls are my daughters and the children are my children…all that you see is mine!” (Genesis 31:43) God warned Laban not to harm Jacob but said nothing about Jacob’s offspring. Laban felt compassion for his daughters and their children but his intention was ultimately to destroy future generations of their children. This is implied by his statement above; he is saying, in effect, “Your wives and children are really mine and I can do with them as I wish!” Later, in Egypt, Laban’s son would become one of Pharaoh’s advisors who would suggest wiping out both the male and female Israelites. Balaam ben Beor33The Midrash suggests that Pharaoh had three advisors regarding the Israelites: Laban’s son who called for the total destruction of Israel; Job who remained silent and did not advise Pharaoh one way or another; and Jethro who discouraged Pharaoh and then fled from Egypt to save himself. is really the son of Laban (Beor is another name for Laban).
Laban’s intentions had to do with the divine sparks which fill the world. According to the Kabbalists, there are 288 sparks that fell into the mundane world and were mixed in with the shards which were created at the time of creation. The role of Israel in the world is to redeem these sparks and to return them to their Divine source. Laban was intent on preventing Jacob from accomplishing this task. The gematriah of Rachel and Leah are 274; when we add the eleven sons of Jacob that were born in Laban’s house along with Jacob’s daughter, Dinah, as well as the two concubines, Bilhah and Zilpah, the number adds up to 288 – the nitzotzot, the divine sparks. This number is hinted at in God’s warning to Laban: “Beware of attempting anything with Jacob, good (tov) or bad (ra). The gematiah of these two words along with the two words as one expression is also 288; that is, God actually warned Laban not to interfere with the divine sparks that Jacob was in the process of freeing. It was for this reason that initially, Laban only wanted to give Jacob Leah (gematriah, 36) as a wife which would have left 252 sparks in his control, which is the gematriah of the word Arami. When he was forced to give Jacob his second daughter, Rachel, he was left with 14 sparks. This is hinted at in the expression, Arami oved Avi, Laban, the Arami, wished to destroy Avi, the last 14 divine sparks.34If you do the math you will note that the numbers are off by one in several cases. This does not trouble practitioners of gematriah since the word itself is counted as one, thus increasing the value of the word.
What we see here in Jacob’s exile and later in the exile of the people of Israel to the land of Egypt, is that it ultimately served a good purpose. It is necessary for the people to be in exile to redeem the divine sparks hidden among the nations. God is entirely good but goodness is expressed through many different avenues. Also nothing happens without God’s decree. The divine sparks descended into the world because of the sin at the tree of knowledge, the sins of the generation of the flood, and because of the tower of Babel, as the Zohar and other sources explain. Despite the misfortune that resulted from these events, we are commanded to bless God for the good as well as the evil in our lives because what appears to us as misfortune ultimately serves a higher purpose that brings us closer to redemption. We must, therefore, give thanks for the exiles which we have suffered, just as we give thanks for the redemptions which have experienced.
It is for this reason that we begin the Seder by saying, “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt.” We praise God for having made us slaves just as we praise God, “who took us out of there.” Similarly, this is the reason we eat bitter herbs at the Seder to give thanks for the bitterness of slavery just as we give thanks for the freedom we gained. We also say, “At first our ancestors were idolaters…” to remind ourselves that the purpose of exile was to lift up the divine sparks which fell (into the world) through the sin of our ancestors.
We have pointed out elsewhere that the gematriah of rekhush gadol, great wealth35The Torah tells us that Israel left Egypt with great wealth. Since the gematriah of this expression is the same as the Tree of Knowledge, the implication is that the great wealth was the sparks from the tree of knowledge through which Adam and Eve sinned!, is 569. When we add the number 70 (the number of people who went down to Egypt with Jacob) i t has the same gematriah as the expression “etz hada’at,” the tree of knowledge (639). Thus, when Israel left Egypt, they took with them the sparks that were scattered when Adam and Eve sinned by eating the fruit of the etz hada’at, tree of knowledge. There are many allusions to the redemption of the divine sparks when the Israelites left Egypt. The word “mitei” in the expression mitei mispar k‘mi’at, “few in number,” has the same gematriah as the words etz pri, “the fruit of the tree” (450) and the word mi’at, few, is made up of the same letters as the word ta’am, taste; this is an allusion to the teaching that the “fruit” of the tree of knowledge and the tree itself were both sweet in taste.36This is an allusion to the idea that the tree of knowledge was not a tree at all but a source of enlightenment and knowledge.
The three signs which God gave Moses before he returned to the land of Egypt are also an allusion that the purpose of the Exodus was to redeem the lost divine sparks. The first sign was to turn his staff into a serpent – an allusion to the serpent in the Garden of Eden. The second sign was to make his hand leprous when he removed it from his cloak – an allusion to the tower of Babel. The sin of the tower of Babel was evil speech and leprosy was the punishment of those who gossip about others. And the third sign, turning water to blood, was an allusion to the flood. Through these three signs Moses would be able to convince the people of Israel that the Exodus was all about redeeming the sparks that were lost because of these three sins.
Why was Pharaoh’s intention to kill the males and not the females? First one must understand the hidden meaning of the terms used in this narrative. Male and female are allusions to the divine sparks. “Male” and “female” are references to khochma (wisdom) and binah (understanding), the masculine and feminine attributes of the divine in the sephirotic system. Jacob initially went down to Laban to redeem the lost sparks. The verse, “I took your father from beyond the river,” (Joshua, 24:2-4) is a reference to feminine aspect of the divine, binah, which is called a flowing river (since all the other Sephirot flow forth from it). The people on the other side of the river are called b‘nai kedem, since the kodem, precedes the river just as khochma precedes binah. Thus, the journey to the land of Canaan, across the river, by Abraham and then by Jacob, is really an allegory about the redemption of the divine sparks lost in the world. Laban represents, the kelipot, the husks, into which the sparks were mixed. His name is made up of two parts. The first two letters, lamed bet (gematriah, 32) are a reference to the 32 paths of khochma, wisdom, while the final nun, is a reference to the 50 gates of purity that are associated with the attribute of binah, understanding.
Jacob, in his great wisdom, overcame Laban’s deceit and redeemed the “thirty two paths of khochma,” wisdom, when he fled from Laban. However, he was unable to redeem the “fifty gates of” purity associated with binah.37These two numbers are commonly associated with these two sephirot. The number 32 comes from Sefer Yetzirah and the number 50 is connected with the idea of there being fifty gates of impurity in Egypt. Therefore, he went down to Egypt to continue the redemption of the divine sparks. These fifty sparks had fallen into the deepest impurity, and until Israel descended into the impurity of Egypt, the sparks could not be redeemed. Thus we say, Laban, the Arami, sought to destroy Avi, but he went down to Egypt. Since Pharaoh already had control of the feminine sparks, he now sought to take control of the masculine sparks, the sparks of khochma, by killing the males. That is why the Torah repeatedly says that the heart (leiv) of Pharaoh was hardened. He sought to control the 32, lamed bet, paths of wisdom, khochma. How did Pharaoh plan to do this? By enticing the people of Israel to worship idols in Egypt, since idolatry would damage the attribute of khochma, divine wisdom. The turning point in the Exodus story comes with the fifth plague, cattle disease, since the Egyptians worshipped their cattle. Thus, when God struck their cattle, the divine sparks of wisdom we were redeemed from Egypt (because the Israelites would now see that the gods of the Egyptians were not gods at all). That is why the Haggadah says that the expression “With a mighty hand” is a reference to the fifth plague.38See page ________ It is for this reason that the expression in the Torah changes during this plague from “Pharaoh’s heart was hardened” to “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.” Although the battle was not over, Pharaoh was already defeated!
Pharaoh, then, did not decree against the females because it was unnecessary since they were already under the control of the Egyptians (since Jacob had not yet redeemed those sparks), but Pharaoh did make a decree against the males since he wished to have power over them. Moses, however, redeemed both male and female.
Another proof that Laban planned to kill both the male and females: Laban said to Jacob: “I have it in my power to do you harm; but the God of your father said to me last night, “Beware of attempting anything with Jacob, good or bad.””39Genesis 31:29This verse suggests that God only warned Laban regarding Jacob and not his family. When Laban says “The girls are my girls and their children are my children,” Laban implies that it was his intention to kill the woman and men. Because Jacob was able to free the divine sparks that were in his power he planned even greater evil against the offspring of Jacob. This also made the subjugation of the Israelites even worse in Egypt. That is why Moses said, “Ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has dealt worse with Your people, and You still have not delivered Your people.”40Exodus 5:23 Initially, Pharaoh tried to subjugate them with a peh rakh, delicately; only later did he subjugate them with force.41After Laban or his son advised him to do so, according to the Midrash. The 288 divine sparks were mixed in with the husks of evil that were spread throughout the land of Egypt. The words Tov v‘Rah, good and evil, have the same gematriah. 42The gematriah only adds up to 288 if one adds the ‘kollel’ the expression to the number. Thus, when Laban says I have it in my power to do good and evil – he is really speaking about the divine sparks. When Jacob separated the adarim, flocks, thus arranging to take some for himself from Laban, he is really arranging to take the divine sparks. Adar’im equals 274. We add to this number the 12 sons of Jacob and Dinah making 287. There is still one spark short in this accounting, just as there is one short in the gematriah of tov v‘rah. Similarly the word avi, as in “An Aramean sought to destroy avi, my father, is also 13, referring to the sons and daughter of Jacob.43So where is the extra spark since all these numbers come to 287? This could suggest that even after the flight and redemption from Laban the process of redeeming the sparks was still not done.
Abarbanel
And in the ninth year, [that] of He who scatters [mazreh, alluding to Jeremiah 31:10, which has a numerical equivalent of that year] Israel: The king of Spain conquered the entire kingdom of Grenada and Grenada the great city of many people, the princess among the states [alluding to Lamentations 1:1]. And in his power and the haughtiness of his heart, his spirit changed and incurred guilt, ascribing his might to his god [alluding to Habakkuk 1:11]. And Esau said in his heart [alluding to Genesis 27:41], “How will I find favor to my god, who girded me with might [alluding to Psalms 18:33]? With what shall I begin towards my master, he gave this city into my hands? Should it not be in bringing the people walking in the dark, the lost sheep, Israel, under his wings and to bring back the wild daughter to his his religion and to his faith? Or [otherwise] to send them away from before me to another land, that they should never return to my land and be established in front of my eyes.” Therefore the command and decree of the king [alluding to Esther 4:3] went out like the decree of Medea and Persia, and the herald proclaimed in a loud voice, “You are commanded [alluding to Daniel 3:4], all you families of the House of Israel, when you pass through the water [to be baptized], you shall pray and bow to the god of the nations, so you shall eat the bounty of the land like us today and you will settle in the land and trade in it [alluding to Genesis 34:10]. But if you refuse and rebel and not utter the name of my god and you do not bring prayers to my god, get up and get out from amidst my people, from the lands of Spain, Sicily, Majorca, and Sardinia, which are under my power. And in three months, there will not be a footprint of someone called by the name Jacob and referred to by the name Israel in all the states of my kingdom!” When I was there in the courtyard of the kings’s house, I became weary with calling out; my throat dried up [alluding to Psalms 69:4]. I spoke with the king twice and three times; with my mouth did I beseech him, saying, “Will the king save [us]? Why are you doing this to your servants? Increase greatly the dowry and the gift upon us [alluding to Genesis 34:12], gold and silver and everything that each man from the house of Israel has he will give to his land.” I called my friends, the king’s confidantes, to request [help] for my people. And princes take counsel together [alluding to Psalms 2:2] to speak to the king with great force, to reverse the decrees of anger and fury and the plan that he had thought against the Jews to destroy them [alluding to Esther 9:25]. He was like a deaf viper that stops its ears [alluding to Psalms 58:5]; he responded to no one. And the queen stood at his right to mislead him; she swayed him with her eloquence [alluding to Proverbs 7:21], to fulfill his plan from start to finish. We exerted ourselves and did not rest, I had no repose, no quiet, no rest, yet trouble came [alluding to Job 3:26]. And the people heard this evil thing, and they mourned, and in every place to which the command and the decree reached, there was great mourning among the Jews [alluding to Esther 4:3]. And there was a great harsh and overcoming trembling. the likes of which had not been seen since the day of Judah’s exile from its soil to foreign soil. But everyone said to one another, “Let us be strong for the sake of our religion and for the sake of our God’s Torah, against the voice of the curser and the blasphemer, from the enemy and the avenger. If he will let us live, we shall live, and if he kills us, we shall die. We shall not profane our covenant, nor shall we let our hearts go backward. We will walk in the name of the Lord, our God. And they went with no strength, 300,000 people on foot, I being among them, from youths to the elderly, babies and women in one day [alluding to Esther 3:13] from all of the states of the king. They walked to where the wind took them, and their King went out before them, and the Lord was in front of them. One shall say, “I am the Lord’s,” another shall mark his arm “of the Lord” [alluding to Isaiah 44:5]. Some of them went to the kingdom of Portugal and to the kingdom of Narbonne, which were close to them. But behold, it was distress and darkness and outspread thick darkness [alluding to Isaiah 8:22]. And they were met with frequent and bad distress [alluding to Psalms 71:20], wreck and ruin, famine and the sword [alluding to Isaiah 51:19]. And there were some of them who made a road through the sea and a path through mighty waters [alluding to Isaiah 43:16]. But the hand of the Lord was also upon them to confound them and to destroy them. Since many of the children of the forsaken one [alluding to Isaiah 54:1] were sold as slaves and maidservants [alluding to Esther 7:4] in all the provinces of the nations. And many drowned in the Red Sea, they sank like lead in the majestic waters [alluding to Exodus 15:10). And some also were put through fire and water – since ships burnt down, and the great fire of the Lord consumed them [alluding to Numbers 11:1]. The end of the matter is that not a man was spared from His difficult judgments, some for the sword, some for captivity, and the Lord [also] placed pestilence upon them. And they became a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth [alluding to Deuteronomy 28:25) until they were wholly swept away by terrors [alluding to Psalms 73:19]. And only a few of the many remained. And it is like the statement of our ancestors: Lo, we perish; we are lost, all of us lost! (Numbers 17:27). May the name of the Lord be blessed. I have also chosen their way, the way of the ship in the heart of the seas. And I am amidst the exile, I have come with all of my household, the children are my children, the sheep are my sheep [alluding to Genesis 31:43], here in the praised city of Naples, whose kings are kings of kindness. This year, the year of you have been sojourners [gerim, alluding to Exodus 22:20, which has a numerical equivalent of that year], I spoke to my heart, “That which I have vowed will I fulfill, to write a commentary on the book of Kings, which I have not done until now.” Also because it is a time to act for the Lord, to remember the destruction of our holy and splendorous Temple and the exiles that have come over our people that are written in this book, and as I will explain, with the grace of God. Behold, if so, Hiel the Bethelite, in building Jericho, laid its foundations with his first-born and set its gates in place with his youngest [alluding to I Kings 16:34] – I am a man who has seen my poverty in the youngest of the exiles, and the expulsion that came over me, and that was my personal exile that I had from the Kingdom of Portugal. I then made the foundation and began the commentary on these four books. And in the most senior of the exiles and the saddest of them, which is this bitter hasty expulsion and this great and terrible persecution, which devoured us and discomfited us [alluding to Jeremiah 51:34] and expelled us from having a share in Spain [alluding to I Samuel 26:19] that both ears of anyone who hears about it will tingle [alluding to I Samuel 3:11], I have put the gates of the commentary of this book in place and have completed it. And I have seen fit to begin this book with two general and comprehensive prefaces about its stories.
Redeeming Relevance; Exodus
In the same way that it is difficult to find two more similar stories than the respective exiles of Ya’akov and Moshe,148See Chapter 3. it is equally difficult to find two more disparate parallels than the roles played in these stories by their respective fathers-in-law.149For our present purposes, we are assuming that the various names for the man referred to as Moshe’s father-in-law (i.e. Yitro, Re’uel, Chovev) all describe the same person, whom we will, for simplicity’s sake, call Yitro. While this point is a matter of debate and there are those who suggest that the various names refer to different people, most of the relevant citations are, in any case, from sections where the father-in-law is explicitly referred to as Yitro. Whereas Lavan seems to do something disagreeable every step of the way, Yitro does just the opposite, constantly providing help and support to his son-in-law. Ya’akov has to ask to marry one of Lavan’s daughters (Bereshit 29:18),150Bereshit 29:18. whereas Yitro offers Zipporah to Moshe as his bride (Shemot 2:21).151Shemot 2:21. Not only that, Lavan makes the terms of the marriage agreement almost unbearable (Bereshit 29:26–7);152Bereshit 29:26–7. in the case of Moshe, we don’t hear of any formal terms whatsoever. Most significantly, when Ya’akov asks to leave, we see Lavan trying repeatedly to foil his desires (Bereshit 30:25-35; Bereshit 31:22-24).153Ibid., 30:25–35, 31:22–24. Regarding Moshe, he is not only given permission but an apparent blessing as well (Shemot 4:18).154Shemot 4:18. On the one hand, Lavan runs after Ya’akov in what could be understood as an effort to kidnap the wives and the children, whom Lavan describes as his own (Bereshit 31:43).155Bereshit 31:43. Yitro, on the other hand, runs after Moshe for just the opposite reason – to bring his son-in-law’s children and wife back to him (Shemot 18:1–6).156Shemot 18:1–6. Finally, when Lavan catches up with Ya’akov, he tries to impose his own religious preferences on his son-in-law, making sure that their non-belligerence pact makes reference to his own god as well as the God of Ya’akov (Bereshit 31:53).157Bereshit 31:53. In comparison, when Yitro finds Moshe in the desert, he makes the decision to offer sacrifices to his son-in-law’s God alone and to leave sacrifices to his own gods for a more appropriate time.158Of course Yitro’s sacrificing only to God would be a foregone conclusion if he himself had completely converted to the Jewish faith, as indicated by many rabbinic statements. We will explain later, however, that such a reading doesn’t seem to fit well with the text’s simple meaning, nor does it seem to be a consensus position among the sages. As a result, we will assume that Yitro had not completely left idolatry at this time and that he made a conscious choice to worship only the Israelite God in Moshe’s presence.
Redeeming Relevance; Exodus
프리미엄 회원 전용Sefer Daniel; Opportunity in Exile
프리미엄 회원 전용Rashi
ולמי אלה לפניך means and these which are before you whose are they; i.e. to whom is this present being sent? The letter ל is used as a prefix in place of של “belonging to”; e.g., (31:43) “and all that thou seest is mine (לי)” i.e. belongs to me; (Psalms 24:1) “The earth is the Lord’s (לה') and the fullness thereof” i.e. belongs to the Lord.