Halakhah do Izajasza 11:78

And this is the intention of our rabbis z”l, when they say, “All who judge a judgement truthfully, it’s as if he is a partner with God in the creation of the world,” because God created the world to continue and the wicked who steal and commit acts of violence ruin the world through their actions. And similarly we find regarding the generation of the flood that the decree of their judgement was sealed only because of theft, as it is written, (Genesis 6:11) “For the earth is filled with violence,” and it says after this, (Genesis 6:13) “I will destroy them with the earth”. What emerges is that the judge who breaks the high arms of the wicked keeps the world going and completes the will of the Creator, blessed is His name, who created it to keep going, and it is as if they become partners with the Holy One ,Blessed Be He, in the creation. Abraham our forefather didn’t know God, and He called him (Isaiah 41:8) “My beloved” because he walked in the ways of justice and guided his children, as it is written, (Genesis 18:19) “For I have known him, to the end that he may command his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of God, to do righteousness and justice…” And Moses our teacher a”h, master of all prophets, took advice from Yitro with regards to justice, to establish judges to caution Israel and to command them through justice, and God agreed with this. And Joshua afterwards established a covenant with Israel to serve God, he left his last word as justice, as it is written, (Joshua 24:25) “On that day Joshua made a covenant for the people, and there at Shechem he reaffirmed for them laws and justice.” [This is] because justice is the foundation and the great principle in the service of God, and following [Abraham] have each and every judge judged their generation, and bring them back from their evil ways to service of God to go in the way that Abraham paved to do righteousness and justice, and through this were they [i.e. the Jewish people] were saved from their enemies until Samuel the prophet came, God-faithful, (1 Samuel 7:15-16) “who judged Israel all the days of his life. And he went on a circuit year by year to Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah. And he judged Israel in all these places.” And our sages tell us that the path he took one year was not the one he took the next, so that he could turn the hearts of the entire nation toward service of God, and to walk in the way of Abraham our forefather a”h, and he anointed David to be the king of Israel, and he too walked in the ways of God from all that was in front of him, as it is written,(2 Samuel 8:15) “And David did justice and righteousness. (1 Chronicles 11:8) “And Joab restored the rest of the city.” And our sages tell us that in the merit of the justice and righteousness of David, Joab restored the rest of the city, and had his child [Solomon] continue after him, the “Yedid Hashem”, who loved to go in the laws of his father David and would ask from God an understanding, listening heart to judge his people, to understand between good and bad, and it was good in God’s eyes, that which he asked regarding this. And He gave him a wise and understanding heart which has never been before, and no one has been like him since, and all of Israel was afraid of him because they saw that the wisdom of God was in his heart to do justice. And also Jehoshaphat, who took the paths of his father and raised his heart in the ways of God, was strengthened in justice, and he appointed judges in every city, and he said to the judges, “See what you do, for you are not judging for man but for God, and with you shall be justice.” Josiah as well, that Scripture testifies about him, “And no king was like him before, who returned to God with all his heart.” And also the King Messiah, who will be revealed speedily in our days, is praised by Scripture regarding justice, and it is written, (Isaiah 11:4) “And he will judge the destitute with justice, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth…” And according to the greatness of his reward will be the punishment for those who void and pervert it, as it is taught, “Destruction comes to the word based on lack of law and on the perversion of law.” And so did David say, (Psalms 119:121) “I have done justice and righteousness, leave me not to my oppressors.” This implies that without justice, he would have been left in the hands off oppressors. And Jerusalem was only destroyed, and Israel only exiled, because of the neglecting of justice, as it is written, (Isaiah 1:21) “She once was full of justice; righteousness used to dwell in her-- but now murderers.”... And God wants it more than all the sacrifices, as it is written, “Doing righteousness and justice is choicier to God than the zevach offerings.” It does not says “than sin and burnt offerings,” but rather “than zevach offerings.”

Some of the meals prepared in the world to come are bodily and intellectual – for both the body and soul. And there are some intellectual meals for souls who stand alone without the body, and they enjoy forever those very worlds where each and every one resides according to their level. The bodily meals have been reserved for them from the beginning, the refined and pure foods created from the supernal light through a chain of causes. And they are: Leviathan among the fishes, Bar-Yokhnai among the birds, which were created on the fifth day, and Leviathan is called what it is because it is ordered for the righteous, and likewise the Behemoth of the thousand mountains,¹Ps 50:10. which was created on the sixth day with the creation of the human being, but before him. And the quality of these foods is very profound; they can penetrate into the intellect and purify the heart, like the manna which the generation in the desert merited, which was “like wafers in honey”,²Ex. 16:31. and was an offspring of the upper light, about which it is written, “Sweet is the light, and good to the eyes, to see the sun.”³Eccl. 11:7. And it is possible that their quality will be greater than those who ate the manna, for insofar as perception at the end of days will be greater and more elevated than all the times before, so will the hearts be wide enough to include knowledge of Ha-Shem (May He Blessed) in its completeness, like “waters covering to the sea,”⁴Is. 11.9. and this will be in the time of the Messiah greater and greater than the generation of the desert who went out of Egypt, habituated to hard labor, raising their hands out of mud, and their “palms just passed from the kettle.”⁵Ps. 81:7. For this time will be the perfect and elevated time, following the will of the One Who dwells in the bush, what is not so in this world, because it does not follow what His will was. And that is why they fixed the wording of the Kaddish to say, ‘be-alma dibra khe-r’utay‘ [‘in the world He created according to His will’], so consequently we pray for the time of the King Messiah which in the future the Holy One Blessed be He will create according to His will. And the compelling proof of this is that this world which we stand in now, in its conduct indeed does not follow His will, because here – when Adam sinned because of the serpent, it was against His will, because it was indeed His will that Adam live forever, that he never die. And thus the intention of creation was originally that no creature ever cross the line of serving its Creator, and because the design of the Holy One Blessed Be He was not fulfilled, but instead, the design of the Adversary, nevertheless, this world itself necessarily will return to the end which was the desire of its Creator at its beginning. And because we pray for this very time, the formulation of the Kaddish was fixed in the Aramaic language, so that the ministering angels won’t recognize or understand it, for if they did understand, they would be jealous of our status at that time, and they would pray for the delay of the redemption. Therefore we seek mercy for the name YAH as it written regarding it, “By the hand on the throne of YAH,”⁶Ex 17:16. Both kise and Yah are spelled defectively, that is without an aleph and hay respectively, according to R. Bahya’s midrashic reading of Ex 17:16 and the Kaddish. See Mahzor Vitry. that His name will be “made greater and sanctified”, that is, the “name Yah will be great and blessed” [yehay shmay (= shem yah) rabah mevorakh], namely, that both His name and His throne will be complete, in that world which He created according to His will, all of it will return to like it was at its beginning. And I have compelling proofs for this that there is no need for me to go into at length, for it is my intention in this Gate only to give an explanation of the bodily and intellectual meals prepared for the righteous in their body and soul, and for the intellectual meals which are for the soul alone without the body. And no one with understanding ought to be astonished if the righteous will have actual physical meals, that they will delight in both in body and soul. For see, in the Garden of Eden which had in its land a tree of life which could bring about eternal life for those who ate from it – whether good or bad, and there was water and grasses in it, which without a doubt, some of them were life-giving, others deadly, some of them healthful, others which would make you sick. And thus it is written in the Torah, “There He made for them a fixed rule, and there He put them to the test.”⁷Ex 15:25, which R. Bahya understands to apply to the Garden of Eden as well, not just to the grumbling Israelites’ experience in the desert.And the view of our rabbis z”l was that the wood was bitter, and the Holy One Blessed Be He sweetened the bitter with something bitter, a miracle within a miracle, and so our sages z”l taught in a midrash:⁸Mekhilta Be-Shalah Vayisa’ 1. “‘The Lord showed him [Moses] a piece of wood.’⁹Ex 15:25. Rabbi Elazar says it was hardofaney,¹⁰A kind of ivy with berries poisonous to animals. R. Nathan says it was olive wood,¹¹According to the Mekhilta, ibid., there is no wood more bitter than olive wood. and there are others who say it was the roots of a fig tree.” In any case, it was bitter. And so you find it written about Elisha, “The water is bad and the land causes bereavement,”¹²2 Kings 2:19. and it is written, “Bring me a new dish, and put salt in it,”¹³Ibid. 2:20. and that “healed” the water.¹⁴Ibid., 2:22.Rabbi Simon ben Gamaliel says how much more wonderful are His ways than the ways of flesh and blood! He puts a harmful thing inside a harmful thing to make a miracle inside of a miracle.¹⁵Mekhilta, ibid. Moreover, we are able to teach even more midrash about this, for you know Torah has seventy faces, because when it said in the verse, “There He put them to the test,”¹⁶Ex 15:25. that is to say, there Moses tested this plant, and it was out of the science the Holy One Blessed be He taught him that he knew the power of this plant, about its nature or its virtue, which was to sweeten the bitter. And so it uses the expression: va-yorehuHa-Shem (i.e., “the Lord instructed him”), instead of va-yar’ehu (“He showed him”),¹⁷Ex 15:25. Actually, va-yorehu is just a defective spelling of va-yarehu, and so its literal meaning is the same: “He showed him,” but R. Bahya exploits the spelling anomaly for the sake of midrash.because he had to have Him teach him about this; the Holy One Blessed be He taught him the science of the plants He created – about their nature to revive and to kill, to heal and to sicken, to sweeten and to embitter. And this is the connotation of the expression hok u-mishpat (“statute and law”):¹⁸Here R. Bahya is drawing upon the classic Jewish medieval philosophical distinction between laws whose rationale are not immediately accessible to reason – “hukim” (e.g., the rules of kashrut) and those which any rational being would derive through reason – “mishpatim” (e.g., “Thou shalt not kill”). The Torah consists of both types of laws, but the hukim are known to us only because God revealed them. R. Bahya suggests here that the “laws of nature” (e.g., the nature of plants in this case) are analogous to laws governing human behavior – mitzvot. In other words, eh believe we can discern some qualities of the natural world through natural science, but other qualities are made known to us only through supernatural revelation. hok is its virtue whose reason is not known, and about mishpat, our rabbis z”l said, “And the Lord instructed him [about] the tree” – that is, its nature, that it is by law to be so in its nature. And it is connected immediately to “If you will heed the Lord your God diligently, doing what is upright in His sight, giving ear to his commandments and keeping all His hukim [“statutes”], then I will not bring upon you any of the diseases that I brought upon the Egyptians, for I the Lord am your healer.”¹⁹Ex 15:26.Scripture has warned us not to entrust the core of our well-being to the power of plants, but rather to keeping the commandments, for they are the core. And with keeping the commandments He will keep them healthy, and prevent them from getting sick. And it was necessary to say this, because it is possible that mortals, erring and stumbling through their knowledge of the powers of these plants, will entrust the core of their well-being to them, and despair of seeking mercy from the Master of Mercy (may He be blessed) “in whose hand is every living soul.”²⁰Job 12:10. And this is the reason why King Hezekiah hid the Book of Cures, so that human beings would not stumble over them, and the sages z”l thanked him for this.²¹B. Pesahim 56a.

(2) A number of medieval scholars, including R. Issac Abarbanel in his commentary on Genesis 9:3 and Isaiah 11:7, and R. Joseph Albo, Sefer ha-Ikkarim, Book III, chapter 15, regard vegetarianism as a moral ideal, not because of a concern for the welfare of animals, but because of the fact that the slaughter of animals might cause the individual who performs such acts to develop negative character traits, viz., meanness and cruelty. Their concern was with regard to possible untoward effect upon human character rather than with animal welfare.²See also R. Abraham I. Kook, Iggerot Re’iyah (Jerusalem, 5722), II, 230.

On the seventh of Pesaḥ, the nights before the holiday, we sanctify it with Kiddush over the wine, and we do not need to say the blessing Sheheḥeyanu over the season. And here ¹ Pesachim 102b:5 is the proof. As it says there: Because Rav did not say that one recites the blessing over the season, learn from that that we are discussing the seventh day of Pesaḥ. Whatever wine he had, he already consumed, and does not have enough for two more cups. And the explanation for this is that the season is included within the pilgrimage. And we pray as on the first two days of Pesaḥ, for the evening and for the morning, but in the Musaf prayer we add to the verses of And you shall present ² Numbers 28:19-24, and we say, And on the seventh day a sacred gathering it will be for you, all laborious work you will not do.³ Numbers 28:25 And its offerings, etc. And we take out two Torah scrolls and read from And it was when he let them go⁴ Exodus 13:17 to For I am the LORD your healer ⁵ Exodus 15:26, since on the seventh day the Israelites of the exodus said the Song at the Sea. And the mafṭir reads from And you shall present to the end of the part⁶ Numbers 28:19-25, and concludes in Samuel, from And there was again fighting in Gath⁷ II Samuel 21:20 to the end of the song of David⁸ II Samuel 22:51, because it is a song, and it has language within it showing similarity to language of the exodus from Egypt, like Smoke went up from His nostrils⁹ II Samuel 22:9 or And he let loose bolts¹⁰ see II Samuel 22:9. And a minor translates it all into the Aramaic translation verse by verse, from And it was when he let them go¹¹ Exodus 13:17 and from the entire song, for this very day Israel crossed the sea, and the section is translated to publicize miracle. And just as it is our custom to translate the Torah into the Aramaic of Onkelos, so too we translate the Prophet into the Aramaic of Jonathan. And we also translate the readings on Atzeret that is to say, Shavuot, but not on the other festivals. On the eighth day we read Every firstborn to the end of the reading¹² Deuteronomy 15:19-16:17, and conclude with Isaiah, at That same day at Nob up to Shout and cheer¹³ Isaiah 10:32-12:6, because the downfall of Sanḥeriv was on Pesaḥ.