Myśl Żydowska do Psalmów 73:25

And this is what the Midrash says (Vayikra Rabbah 13:5) "Another idea: "the camel"- this is Babylon, "for it chews its cud", for it praises the Holy One Blessed be He. Rabbi Barachya and Rabbi Chelbo in the name of Rabbi Yishmael the son of Nachman [said], all that which [King] David specified, this wicked one [Nebuchadnezzar] included in one verse, as it says (Daniel 4:34) "So now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise, exalt, and glorify the King of Heaven..." ["...all of whose works are just and whose ways are right, and who is able to humble those who behave arrogantly"]: "praise" - (Psalms 147:12) "O Jerusalem, praise Hashem"; "exalt" - (Psalms 30:2) "I exalt You, Hashem"; "glorify" - (Psalms 104:1) "Hashem, my G-d, You are very great, You are clothed in glory and majesty"; "all of whose works are just" - (Psalms 138:2) " Upon your kindness and upon your truth"; "and whose ways are right" - (Psalms 96:10) "He judges the peoples with equity"; "and those who behave arrogantly" - (Psalms 93,1) "Hashem is king, He is robed in grandeur"; "he is able to humble" - (Psalms 75:11) "All the horns of the wicked I will cut". "And the Deman" (Vayikra 11:5), this is Persia, "for it chews its cud", for it praises the Holy One Blessed be He, as it says (Ezra 1:2) "Thus says Koresh, king of Paras" [All the kingdoms of the earth have been given me by the L-rd, the G-d of the heavens. And He has commanded me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.]. "And the hare" (Vayikra 11:6), this is Greece, "for it chews its cud", for it praises the Holy One Blessed be He. Alexander of Macedon [don't know what " כד הוי חמי" means...] towards Rebbe Shimon HaTzadik. He [Alexander] said Blessed is the G-d, the G-d of Shimon HaTzadik. "And the pig" - this is Rome, "it does not chew its cud" - for it doesn't praise the Holy one Blessed be He. And it's not sufficient that it [Rome] doesn't praise [Hashem], but it insults and it profanes and says (Psalms 93:25) "Whom else have I in heaven?"". And the explanation [of this Midrash] is like we have said, for all of the [first three] empires are not intrinsically connected to emptiness, besides for the final empire [Rome]. And even though each and every empire incited the empire after it, this is also because emptiness arrives at the end. In any event, emptiness isn't attached to the essence of the empire [in the first three instances], but in the fourth empire emptiness is attached to it completely. And so emptiness brings a new existence, as is known, and therefore this emptiness brings a return of experience to Yisrael. And therefore the fourth empire is called "חזיר"- "Pig", for "שתחזור" it will "Return" the Kingship to Yisrael, which is to say considering the aspect of the emptiness to which the fourth empire is attached, it will usher in the experience of the Kingship of Yisrael. For the emptiness is a cause of the experience, as this matter is known to the intelligent people of wisdom, and therefore the fourth empire is Pig. And because of this, this empire is compared to iron, which destroys everything, and just as it is attached in essence fo emptiness, there it wants to cause everything to become empty and destroy everything.

[Maharal will now proceed to bring a lengthy, and rather windy, Midrash. This Midrash expounds the particular wording in a series of verses at the beginning of Parhas Chukas, near the end of the 4th book of the Torah - Bamidbar. These verses detail the paradigmatic suprarational commandment of the Torah: the sacrifice of the red heifer. The Midrash leverages verses from various prophets in connection to particular word choices in this Torah passage in order to reveal an underlying message about the journey of the Jewish people throughout their various exiles through history. Our Midrash here operates in very similar style to the Midrash based on the opening verses of the 1st book of the Torah - Bereshit, which we already encountered at the beginning of this Sefer.]And it's found in the Midrash (Yalkut Shemoni, Chukas, 19) '"Heifer" - this is Egypt, as it says (Jeremiah 46:20) "Egypt is a handsome heifer...". "Red" - this is Babylon, as it says (Daniel 2:38) "...you are the head of gold". "Unblemished" - this is Persia. Says Rebbi Chiya Bar Abba 'the kings of Persia were unblemished, HaKodesh Baruch Hu had nothing on them except for their idol worship, which they merely received from their forefathers.' "In which there is no defect" - this is Greece. Alexander of Macedon [don't know what כד חמא means...maybe "when he saw"] for Shimon HaTaadik he would bow at his feet and [Alexander] would say Blessed is the G-d of Shimon HaTzadik. They said to him [ פלטין דידיה], in front of this Jew you bow?! [Alexander] said, when I go to battle, the I see his likeness and I am victorious. "on which no yoke has been laid" - this is the fourth empire, for they did not accept upon themselves the Yoke of HaKodesh Baruch Hu, and it wasn't sufficient that they didn't accept it, they disgrace it and blaspheme it and say (Psalms, 73:25) "Whom do I have in heaven?". (Bamidbar 19:3) "You shall give it to Eleazar the priest. It shall be taken outside the camp" - this teaches that in the future he [Eleazar] will push out [don't know what של כרך גדול is... maybe Rome's minister its great city] out of his designated area. "and slaughtered in his presence", this is as it says (Isiah 34, 6) " For the LORD holds a sacrifice in Bozrah..[great slaughter in the land of Edom]". Said Rebbe Berachya, there will be a great massacre in that land. "The heifer shall be burned in his sight" [this is an allusion to] (Daniel 7:11) "it was consigned to the flames". "its hide, flesh..." [don't know what this means: דוכסיא ואיפרכיה ואיסתרטליטיה], as it says (Ezekiel 27:27) "Your wealth, your wares, your merchandise, Your sailors and your pilots, The men who made your repairs, Those who carried on your traffic...[And all the fighting men within you— All the multitude within you— Shall go down into the depths of the sea On the day of your downfall.]. Says Shmuel the son of Yitzhak, even those that were from my community, and came to be connected to your community, even they their hearts will fall for days on the day of your downfall.'