Halakhah do Rodzaju 49:34

And it is necessary that you know that human eating is nothing but an illusion, that it is not a true thing or a real activity, that it is something deceptive, something that keeps changing as it goes through the internal organs in a sequence of causes and effects. But ideas refined through wisdom, and by the attachment of one’s thought to the light of the intellect to the Upper Wisdom is itself “real and lasting eating,” as in the way that our Sages of blessed memory interpreted the verse: “‘And they envisioned God, and they ate and drank.’¹²Ex 24:11. R. Yohanan says, ‘real eating,’ [akhilah vada’it], as it is said, ‘In the light of the face of the King – life!’¹³Prov.16:15. And it is necessary for you to think hard about this verse, why it was necessary to say, ‘they envisioned,’ and why wasn’t it written as it was just before, ‘they saw?¹⁴Ex. 24:10. But rather because it specified ‘they saw’ so you would not understand [what happened next] as actual seeing with the sense of your eye, it follows that it was necessary to say ‘they envisioned’ immediately afterward to teach you that this wasn’t this prior kind of ‘seeing’ [re’iyah], but rather seeing by means of prophecy, and that is why it said, ‘And they envisioned [va-yehezu] God, and they ate and drank,’ from the term for prophetic “vision” [mahzeh]. And the explanation of the Scripture ‘And they envisioned God, and they ate and drank,’ is that the leaders merited to see with the prophecy of ‘a glass that does not reflect,’ without a barrier, while the rest of Israel had a barrier, and Moses really “saw” directly.¹⁵That is, the leaders’ prophetic vision was better than the Israelites’, but not as direct as Moses.’ “And they ate and drank,” that is to say that their eating and drinking by this vision was indeed “real eating.” And it is also possible to interpret “And they ate and drank” as that they saw by prophecy the very attribute from which they “ate and drank,” that is, from the very same attribute from which the manna came to them, which is the principle behind all their material support, about which matter it is written, “She rises while it is still night,”¹⁶Prov. 31:15. and it is written “Here I am causing it to rain down.”¹⁷Ex 16:4. And you already knew that this was material support that occurred at night, for this is to what ‘She rises while is still night’ is referring. And thus the manna used to come down during the third watch of the night, when the Israelites were sleeping in their beds in the desert. And on the next day they would get up early in the morning and find their sustenance ready for them. This is the meaning of what is written: “So they gathered it every morning.”¹⁸Ex 16:21. And thus you will find in First Temple that the rains used to fall on Wednesday and Shabbat nights, and on the next day they would get up early in the morning to do their work, without wasting any time. And so you also find with King Hezekiah, who said, “Master of the World, I myself don’t have the power in me to pursue enemies, or to sing a victory song, but I sleep on my bed, and you do it.” And the Holy One Blessed be He replied to him, “You sleep in your bed while I do it,” as it is said, “That night, an angel of the Lord struck down 185,000 in the Assyrian camp.”¹⁹2 Kings 19:35. This story about Hezekiah is a midrash from Lam. R. 30. It was about him (or this) David spoke when he said, “In vain do you rise up early and stay up late…He provides as much for His loved ones while they sleep.”²⁰Ps 127:2. The meaning of the Scripture is that what the other peoples achieve through hard work, by getting up early and staying up late to eat the bread for which they toil,²¹An allusion to Ps 127:2. R. Bahya hints here that food “served” to Israelites without any toil, that is, good things God prepares for them while they are asleep, is angelic food. As R. Bahya put in his preface, “Our food is not their food. Their [the angelic beings’] food is conceived in their mind, when they see the face of their Maker. Our food is meager bread, water, and tears, gotten by hard work and toil.” It is like the food Adam ate before the Fall.God provides to His loved ones while they sleep! This is the thing the Holy One provides to the one He loves, at the hour when he’s asleep, with no need to bother about it at all. And from now on any reference to “they ate and drank” means nothing other than a reference to “real eating,” or to eating the manna that was the offspring of the Upper Light – which is “real eating.”

Therefore the reverent person ought to have his intention connected to the higher things, and have his eating be to sustain his body alone and not to be drawn to physical pleasures, for being drawn to physical pleasures is the cause for the loss of both body and soul, and the cause for forgetting the point, for out of eating and drinking he will become full of himself [lit., lift up his heart] and stumble into great pitfalls and sins, and do things which should not be done. See how Joseph’s brothers sold him only in the middle of eating and drinking, as it is said, “They sat down to a meal, and looking up…”²²Gen 37:28. While eating the brothers looked up and saw the Ishmaelites to who they sold Joseph. R. Bahya expands upon this more fully in his commentary to the Torah on this verse. And for this reason the Torah said not to eat on Yom Kippur, which is the day of judgment for criminal cases involving people, because one’s eating might cause his soul to sin. And they even said in civil cases dealing with monetary compensation: “akhal ve-shatah al yorah” – “Don’t instruct right after eating and drinking!”²³A rhyming proverb in the Hebrew. Yorah, which means to instruct or teach, is the same verb used in the Biblical passage from Lev. 10:11 that R. Bahya cites. It is from the same Hebrew root as the word Torah. R. Bahya subtly makes another point here besides the obvious one that people are inclined to make bad judgments right after they’ve eaten and drunk. Namely, with this wordplay and the analogy to the Biblical priests, he’s reiterating his general contention that engaging in torah is a sacramental priest-likeactivity, even when done by non-priests – i.e., rabbinical torah scholars, or even ordinary Jews fasting on Yom Kippur. Why is this so? From what is written, “Drink no wine or other intoxicant, you or your sons,”²⁴Lev 10:9, addressed to Aaron and his sons, that is, the priests. and connected to it, “to instruct [le-horot] the Israelites.”²⁵Ibid., 10:11. When they were commanded to instruct [le-horot], they were warned to avoid wine, because wine confuses the mind, and it does not distinguish between the holy and the profane, which is why it is written “to distinguish.”²⁶Ibid., 10:10. All this is proof that eating and drinking causes human beings to move themselves away off the track of Torah and worship, and to cast aside all the statutes of Ha-Shem, may He be Blessed. All this is caused when one has eaten and is satisfied, and therefore the Torah commanded, “And you shall eat and be satisfied, and you shall bless” (Deut 8:10). That is to say, after you will have eaten and have been satisfied, and you are close to throwing off the yoke of the commandments, “You shall bless YHWH your God” at the very moment you need to bless Him, so that you will take upon yourself the yoke of His rule and bless His name. And this in my opinion is the meaning of the Scripture, “In all your ways, know Him;”²⁷Prov 3:6. it means even at the time of eating when you are close to forgetting Him and to severing your reason from your mind, at that very moment, “know Him” and cleave to Him. And if you do this, “He will straighten your paths,”²⁸Prov 3:6. He will straighten your ways on the paths of life, namely, the soul’s successful attainment of the world to come. If so, then a person ought to eat only for the sustenance of his body alone, and it is forbidden for him to pursue any sort of pleasure unless it is to make his body healthy and make the eyes of his intellect clear-sighted. In order for his body to be healthy and strong, he should pursue what pleases [his intellect] and his Creator, for his organs are combined and possess the capacity exactly in the measure that enables him to bear the yoke of the Torah and its commandments, which is the point of the verse written about the tribe of Issachar, “he bent his shoulder to bear the burden” (Gen 49:15), which is the same language used to refer to the giving of the Torah, “He [God] bent the sky and came down” (2 Sam 22:10). And anyone whose intention is this, is an angel of the Lord of Hosts, but whoever does not direct their intention to this end, is “likened to the beasts that perish.” (Ps 49:13,21). “You can see for yourself”²⁹1 Sam 24:12: Re-eh gam re-eh – “you can see for yourself” (JSB). Joseph the righteous, who was noted for his quality of reverence [yir’ah], from what is written, “I am a God-fearing man”³⁰Gen 42:18. and “Am I a substitute for God?”³¹Ibid. 50:19. hinted at this point when he said, “take something for the hunger of your houses and be off.”³²Ibid. 42:33. He comes to instruct and to teach people to know that they should only eat to break their hunger, not to fill their belly and be drawn by the taste, which is base and to be scorned, because that is a disgrace to us, utter waste, and a thing which has no point to it. And do not say that this because it was a time of famine, because when Joseph was “a prince and commander of peoples,”³³Is 55:4.and the treasuries of the king were under his control, he had the power to supply bread and food to his father and brothers, as in the other the years of plenty. However, instead he made it known to us that this is the way of Torah and fear of Ha-Shem (may He be blessed!), that a person should only eat, satisfy himself, and fill his belly to satisfy his soul.

Even though it appears from the first outlook that the place the Hillazon is found is in the mountains so is stated in Tractate Sanhedrin (91a) 'He went up to the mountains and saw that today there was only one Hillazon, the next day it rained and the mountain was filled with Hillazon. And in truth in Tractate Menachot (44a) it says they emerge once in seventy years - Rashi explains: it emerges from the land and only in the mountain in the territory of Zevulun.

Out of all this it will be explained explicitly that the words are meant literally: about the actual flesh of Leviathan, about his actual skin.³¹In his insistence on the literal meaning of the Talmudic description of the banquets in the world to come, R. Bahya follows the position of his teacher, R. Solomon ben Adret (Chavel). However, there’s a certain irony here that R. Bahya uses rather non-literal midrashic interpretations of scriptural verses to support his contention that the statements about the food and setting of the banquets in the world to come are indeed to be taken quite literally. The actual flesh of Leviathan will be the food of the righteous who “bothered themselves” with the Torah and mitzvot, and his actual skin to make their dwelling place glow in order to proclaim their high status among the nations, how they served the Holy One Blessed be He and took hold of His Torah and His qualities, to what is written here refers: “And you shall come to see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between him who has served God and him who has not served Him.”³²Mal 3:18. And likewise it is written, Behold my servants shall eat, and you shall hunger; My servants shall drink, and you shall thirst… My servants shall cry out in gladness and you shall cry out in anguish, howling in heartbreak.³³Is 65:13-14.

And you ought to understand now that is known, that because of Adam’s sin his height was diminished, as our rabbis z”l taught in a midrash:⁴³B. Sanhedrin 38b. “But when he sinned, the Holy One Blessed be He, set His eyes upon him and diminished him and reduced him to one thousand cubits,⁴⁴From his original height which originally stretched from one end of the earth to the other, according to this midrash! for it is written, ‘You hedge me before and behind; You lay your hand upon me.’⁴⁵Ps 129:5. You need not wonder that when the sin has been atoned for and the decree has been cancelled that his height will return to its original measure, for indeed the height was diminished only because of the sin, which caused the climate to go bad, but at this time the whole work of creation will be changed for the better, and return to its perfection and virtue, just as it was in the time of Adam before the sin, and then the heights will get bigger and return to their original measure, and all of Israel will be elated and enjoy the kingdom of Shaddai, and there will be a flow of perception and pleasure into the body and soul, a huge “King’s share” of blessing.⁴⁶Literally, “great as the hand of the King (may He be blessed)” [could give]. And now that I have explained all this to you, no rationalist ought to doubt from now on that the physical meal prepared for the righteous, because these things had been created back then with this intention – that from them would come in the future the reward for the righteous – that they will delight in these meals with their bodies. And already our sages z”l said that Moses Our Teacher (peace be upon him) will be with them serving these meals. You will find a hint of this matter in the Torah in the blessings of Jacob (peace be upon him) when he said, “Until Shiloh will come,”⁴⁷Gen 49:10. that is to say, until Moses will come. For he wanted to hint at the coming of the “nearer” redeemer by whom Israel would be redeemed from Egypt; and the last, more distant redeemer is included in this who will come at the future redemption And this is also: “Until Shiloh will come.”⁴⁸Ibid. The expression will serve to refer to the two redemptions: the first, which is nearer in time, and the last, which is more distant. And thus they said in a midrash about Moses our Teacher (may he rest in peace): “shihula kardona – the skinner for preparing a meal, who was pulled out,” – the explanation of “shihula,” is Moses, which is from the Aramaic [shihaltay] for the Hebrew, “I drew him out” (Ex: 2:10).⁴⁹The etymology which the Torah has Pharoah’s daughter give for Moses’ name: “Moshe because I drew him out [mashiti-hu] of the water.” However, the Aramaic for mashiti-hu, shihaltay, is related to the word shilulah, which sounds like “Shiloh;” hence Shiloh refers to Moses, according to the midrash. And a “skinner” (for preparing a meal) is a type of butcher or cook. So here the goal of the intention of these bodily meals is to be a device to refine the body and matter and to sharpen the mind so that it will attain knowledge of the Creator (May He be blessed) and meditate upon the purely intelligible beings, and then the souls by this looking of their bodies will become fit for the intellectual banquet from which the ministering angels themselves who are near the Shekhinah eat – for then the soul will perceive the brilliant light which it is impossible to perceive as long as it is stuck in matter.

The Ramban derives support for his opinion from the fact that Yaakov strongly criticized Shimon and Levi’s actions (Bereishit 34:30). The Rambam could counter that the Torah (ibid. 31) records the retort of Shimon and Levi to this criticism, to which Yaakov does not respond. On the other hand, the Ramban could reply that Yaakov further criticized Shimon and Levi on his deathbed (Bereishit 49:5-7). Thus, the Torah gives the last word to Yaakov.

The Rambam might respond by noting that Yaakov on his deathbed (Bereishit 49:7) criticized Shimon and Levi for their leading roles in the sale of Yosef, but not for killing the residents of Shechem.²The Ramban would disagree since he believes that Yaakov never discovered that it was the brothers who sold Yosef; see his commentary to Bereishit 45:27. Indeed, the words “ish” and “shor” used in Yaakov’s rebuke fit Yosef, as he is referred to as a shor in Moshe Rabbeinu’s final blessing (Devarim 34:17) and is called an ish no fewer than fourteen times in Sefer Bereishit.

“The appointed time of salvation is concealed.”⁵⁶This appears to be a reference to Rashi’s comment on Gen. 49:1: Jacob “wished to reveal the messianic end, but the divine presence was re-moved from him.” See also Rashi’s source, Genesis Raba 98:2. “What is in the heart is not revealed to the mouth.”⁵⁷Kohelet Raba 12:10. Who can know God’s secrets and say precisely when the impurity of the land and the people will be lifted, when the spirit, hidden in its essence but revealed in its actions, will return once again in response to improvements in the outward situation that enable its reappearance in strength and purity upon the people and the land? When will the time of lovers come again, when the people and the land will reunite and mutual goodness and blessing will flow from their relationship—not like in the days of darkness? No one knows. So we raise our eyes to see the signs that are hidden in plain sight. In their vision of the messianic era, the sages said that “there is no messianic portent more obvious than this”:⁵⁸Talmud Bavli, Sanhedrin 98a. See also Rashi ad loc. “When the Land of Israel generously gives of her fruits, then redemption is drawing near; there is no more obvious sign of the messianic end than this.” Rav Kook urges paying attention to the renewed flourishing of agriculture in the Land of Israel as a portent of impending redemption. “But you, O mountains of Israel, shall yield your produce and bear your fruit for My people Israel, for their return is near. For I will care for you: I will turn to you, and you shall be tilled and sown. I will settle a large population on you, the whole house of Israel; the towns shall be resettled and the ruined sites rebuilt. I will multiply men and beasts upon you, and they shall increase and be fertile, and I will resettle you as you were formerly, and will make you more prosperous than you were at first. And you shall know that I am the Lord.”⁵⁹Ezek. 36:8–11. This is the prooftext cited in Sanhedrin 98a (see n. 59 above).

The Gemara limits its discussion to the problems posed by the oath sworn by R. Yoḥanan not to reveal the information. But, putting aside the strictures imposed by the oath, it is manifestly clear that the woman in question imparted the requisite pharmacological information to R. Yoḥanan in confidence and that she expressly informed him of her desire that this esoteric information remain her secret. The information, to be sure, was not personal and certainly was not pejorative. It was, however, information within the exclusive possession of the woman—not unlike the information conveyed to Moses by God that would perforce have remained a divine secret if not for God's express permission to transmit the information to the people of Israel. The sole but crucial distinction is that the medical information in question was of direct and tangible benefit to R. Yoḥanan's audience and its divulgence did no harm to the woman who entrusted the information to R. Yoḥanan. On the basis of the narrative as it is reported there is every reason to assume that the woman in question did not charge a fee for her medical ministrations and hence suffered no adverse financial effect.²⁰See, R. Yitzchak Glick, Ḥinnukh Bet Yiẓḥak (Brooklyn, 5759), no. 34, who cites a narrative recorded in the Gemara, Shabbat 133b, in declaring that a professional secret may not be divulged even if failure to do so will cause a loss of income to the physician. Indeed, Leḥem Setarim, one of the classic commentaries on Avodah Zarah, resolves another difficulty unrelated to this discussion with the observation that no compensation was involved because "since [the woman] was a courtesan she had no need to accept a fee and moreover if [her services were rendered in return] for a fee how is it that she did not wish to disclose what [R. Yoḥanan] must do on Shabbat until he swore?"²¹Cf. R. Yitzchak Zilberstein, Ẓohar, vol. IV (Jerusalem, 5759), ed. R. Eliyakim Dworkes, pp. 190-92, who discusses only the issue of interference with earning a livelihood and, in distinguishing between competition with a gentile and competition with a fellow Jew, notes that the courtesan was a non-Jewess. Presumably, her motive in refusing to share the information with toothache sufferers was a desire for power or self-aggrandizement, or sheer pettiness. It would seem that this talmudic narrative serves to establish that the proprietary interest with regard to non-personal confidences established by the prohibition of bal tomar need not be respected by a confidant when it is exercised as a "trait of Sodom."²²This thesis also serves to resolve a puzzling aspect of the midrashic explanation of Jacob’s statement recorded in Genesis 49:1. On his deathbed, Jacob addresses his sons saying: “Gather yourselves together that I may tell you that which should befall you in the end of days.” Jacob then proceeds to tell them nothing of the sort; he criticizes some and blesses others but does not at all engage in prognostication. Rashi, basing himself on a midrashic comment, explains that Jacob did indeed intended to reveal when the redemption would occur but God, not wishing that information to be revealed prematurely, caused the Shekhinah to depart from Jacob with the result that he was no longer in possession of that information.
The Sages of the Midrash resolved the problem of textual interpretation but they have left us with an even graver problem. Whatever information Jacob possessed by virtue of the resting of the Shekhinah upon him was in the nature of a divine communication. If God desired His communication to Jacob of the date of the Redemption to be privileged, by what right did Jacob attempt to reveal it to his children? The prohibition of bal tomar should apply to the prophecy received by Jacob no less so than to the prophecy received by Moses. If, however, it is understood that there are no proprietary rights or rights of confidentiality that can be asserted when such information is of potential benefit to other parties and its disclosure entails no loss to the holder of the privilege, the problem is readily resolved. Jacob believed the information to be of significant psychological and emotional benefit to his progeny and since, virtually by definition, there could be no “harm” to God in its disclosure, he felt fully justified in imparting that information to his sons.

If the second name is derived from a Hebrew name, such as "Yehudah Leon," we write, "Yehudah, who is called Leon," and if it does not resemble the Hebrew name at all, he should write, "who is nicknamed." Rem"a: The explanation of his words is that "Leon" means lion, and Yehudah is called "the lion cub Yehudah" (Genesis 49:9). According to this, one should write, "Yehudah, who is called Leib." However, there are those who say that whenever both names are in Hebrew, we write, "who is called," and if one is in a foreign language, we write, "who is nicknamed" (Hagahot Maimoni 3, Sefer Mitsvot Katan, and Kol Bo). There is no difference whether it [the foreign name] is derived from the [Hebrew] name or not, and therefore we write, "Yehudah, who is nicknamed Leib" and all the like, and such is the practice in these countries. Any family name is not written at all, whether it is Hebrew or a foreign language (Seder Gittin), and such is the practice. One who has a Hebrew name by which he is called to read from the Torah, and who also has a name in a foreign language, we treat the Hebrew name as the main one, and regarding the second one we write, "who is called." The same applies to a woman--we treat the Hebrew name as the main one. There are those who say that one who has two names, if he is typically called by both and nonetheless one of them takes more priority, we write, "So-and-so, who calls himself so-and.-so." If he is not typically called by the second, we write, "who is called" (Seder Gittin). Any nickname which is a disgrace to the divorcer, we do not write it in the bill of divorce (D"A). Therefore, for an apostate who returned, we do not write, "and any other name by which he is known" (M"K). Any nickname by which he is not known alone, but rather he is called by [that nickname] together with the main name, there is no need to write that nickname (T"H #235). However, if the Cutheans call him by that nickname alone, even though Jews do not call him that, there are those who say that we do write, "and any other name," even though we do not write that in any other document, and so too regarding family names (ibid.). It seems to me that one should not write that nickname at all, as is the practice regarding family names.

2 Masekhet Soferim has different definitions: a petuha is anything which does not start at the head of the line. A setuma is anything that stops in the middle of the line. How much must be left at the beginning of the line for it to be called a petuha? Enough to write a word of three letters. How much must be left in the middle of the line for it to be called a setuma? Enough to write a word of three letters. [End Masekhet Soferim quote.] Suppose he finished a paragraph at the edge of the page and started a new line, and left enough space at the beginning of that line to write three letters, and then started to write? Come and learn from the two sources; the baraita gives the essence of the issue. The baraita reasons that the beginning of the line is what determines a petuha, not the end of the line [so the example case is a petuha according to the baraita]; if one leaves a gap at the beginning and also at the end of the line, it is still a petuha. But the old siddur reasons that it is the end of the line that determines a petuha, not the beginning of the line [so the example case is a setuma according to the baraita]. [To avoid ambiguity, therefore...] if he makes a petuha with space both at the end of the line and at the beginning of the line it is good for both of them. This is correct. There is also another order of petuhot and setumot which seems entirely unconvincing. And these are the tagin of a sefer Torah and the petuhot and setumot according to the masoretic tradition. ביה שמו: the following words should be placed at the beginning of a line and the top of a column: Bereshit (Gen. 1:1); Yehudah ata yodukha (Gen. 49:8); Haba-im ahareihem bayam (Ex. 14:28); Shemor ve-shamarta (Deut. 12:28); Motza sefateikha (Deut. 23:24); Ve-a'ida bam (Deut. 31:28).