Cytowanie Komentarza do Powtórzonego Prawa 29:22

Adir Hu, Mighty is He! “May HE build HIS Temple soon; speedily, speedily; in our life time may it be!” In discussing on what day the redemption would take place, the sages conclude that it would be on the fifteenth of Nissan – on Passover. In discussing this matter, Rashi wonders; since the building of the Temple does not take precedence over the observance of the Sabbath or the Holy Days, how can the third Temple be built on the fifteenth of Nissan which is the first day of Passover. He answers that this prohibition only applies to human construction and not the divine construction of the Temple. We read in the Bible, “The sanctuary of the Lord, which YOU shall establish.”¹⁴⁰Exodus 15:17 Since the Holy One of Blessing will be the one to build the Third Temple this construction project can take place on the festival. That is why we can chant in the words of the poet, “Speedily, speedily in our day…” since the building of the Temple could conceivably begin right at this moment!!” “May HE build HIS Temple,” – we mean this quite literally!
Similarly, even though God swore never to let the Jewish people enter His Temple, “Therefore in my indignation did I swear never to let enter my (place of) rest,” we will be able to enter the Temple. This is like the parable of a king who banished his children from his palace and said he would never let them enter this palace. What did the King do? When he forgave his children he knocked down his old palace and built a new one so that they could enter without his having to break the oath that he made. We read, “I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, they shall never hold their peace day nor night…who…take no rest, and give Him no rest, until He establishes and makes Jerusalem full of praise in the earth.’”¹⁴¹Isaiah 62:6-7 And yet we also ask God to rebuild Jerusalem so that the remnant can enter it. Yet if God has set guards upon the walls of Jerusalem this would seem to suggest that it doesn’t have to be rebuilt! This suggests that the temple was not really burned down but was hidden away for future generations so that even God will not have to rebuild it on the festival! But brings us back to our first question: If the temple was not destroyed, how can we enter it since God swore never to let us “enter His place of rest.” Therefore we must ask God to rebuild Jerusalem so that His oath is no longer in effect and then to let those who are exiled enter the city.
So we are left with a controversy. If the Temple was burned and destroyed, then we don’t have to worry about God’s oath forbidding us entry into it. But if it is merely hidden away, then we cannot enter it even when He returns it to its place. Now we can understand why we ask God to personally rebuild the Temple (so we will not be excluded from it). That is also why on the festival of Sukkot we add an extra passage to the end of the Grace after Meals in which we ask the All-Merciful “to reestablish His fallen Sukkah of David for us.” The Holy Temple is referred to as the Sukkah of David.
We have a further objection to why Israel might not be able to experience the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem. Jewish law teaches us that if a man divorces his wife she is not allowed to live in his neighborhood any more. In the case of our exile God has, in a sense, divorced us. If so what use is there in God rebuilding the Temple? As divorcees from God, we would not be allowed to dwell in His neighborhood, so we would not have access to God’s house or even the courtyard outside of His house. Adir Hu, says, “Your house rebuild,” emphasizing the words, baytcha, “Your house.” But since the Shechinah, the divine presence moved from this place, we are no longer forbidden from entering the Temple, and it is no longer a matter of divorce.¹⁴²I am not sure I understand Rabbi Ginzburg’s point here. Is it that by leaving the Temple, the Temple is no longer ‘God’s neighborhood?’ Or is it that this was not so much a divorce as a separation, and therefore Israel is not forbidden to enter the rebuilt Temple.
Finally, why does the author of Adir Hu add the word, bikarov, “soon” to the opening phrase of the song? This word seems to be redundant and unnecessary. This word teaches us an insight based on a discussion of the law regarding a woman who was raped in the Bible and in the Talmud: If a man rapes a virgin maiden, according to the Torah he must marry her and he is forbidden to ever divorce her.¹⁴³Deuteronomy 29:22: If a man comes upon a virgin girl who is not engaged and seizes her and lies with her….he shall pay…she shall be his wife…he can never have the right to divorce her. This halachah troubles us – it is as if after being a victim of rape she is now condemned to marry a man she does not love or certainly does not want. However, one must remember that up until modern times, marriage was not a matter of love but family unity and continuity. As ‘damaged property’ the father of the girl would have a hard time finding a match for her once she lost her virginity; therefore Jewish law forced the culprit to remain married to her. The Talmud in Makkot 15a discusses what happens if he does give her a writ of divorce. What if he then agrees to take her back? Even if he divorces her, he must remarry her and does not incur the punishment of lashings. He has not broken the negative injunction against divorcing this woman when he is no longer able to take her back.¹⁴⁴Thus, if the rapist was a Kohen and he divorced her, he cannot remarry her because he is not allowed to marry a divorced woman, even if she was formally his wife. So in this case the Kohen would receive lashes for having illegally divorced his wife!
Similarly, in a sense, God forced Himself on Israel at Mount Sinai: according to the Midrash, God held the mountain over the heads of the people and threatened them: He said “If you do not accept My Torah I will put this mountain down on you and this place will be your grave!” Therefore God can never completely divorce the Jewish people – He is bound to us by the same penalty as a man who rapes a virgin girl has according to the Torah! However since human life is limited eventually either the man or the woman in this particular marriage referred to above is going to die; if the man divorced his wife he would then be guilty of having divorced her. In the case of God whose life is forever, we might have to wait a very long time since God is not subject to mortality. Therefore we plead with him, “Rebuild Your house soon!” Don’t make us wait a long time to take us back as is Your obligation according to law.¹⁴⁵Wow! Did God, in a sense, rape of Israel when He forced the Torah upon us at Mount Sinai? Did God break his own law and for that reason can never forsake the Jewish people. Is the estrangement of God from Israel also an infraction? Is Israel is a victim of a forced divorce by God? There is much to think about here implied in this statement….
The refrain of Adir hu, then, answers four reasons why Israel might have doubts about the rebuilding of the Temple: El b’nay baytcha bikarov: God, build your-house soon!
1. How can we rebuild the Temple on a festival? We answer, EL B’nay GOD will rebuild the Temple.
2. God took an oath never to allow us to enter His house – so how can we enter the Temple. To this we answer El B’NAY, “God will build the Temple” so that it will be a new Temple for us to enter and not the one about which he took an oath to exclude us.
3. But God divorced us and therefore we can never return to his neighborhood – so what good will it do to rebuild the temple? To this we say BAYTCHA, “your house.” There was no real divorce here; simply a separation in which the Shechinah left God’s House; therefore we are allowed back in.
4. Finally, even if God can never divorce us completely according to Jewish law (as in the case of a man who rapes a virgin); he can leave us alone and forsaken a very long time since His time is timeless. To this we say BIKAROV, “Rebuild Your house SOON.” That is why we ask God not to take to long in reconciling with us – we love Him and want to return to him soon!

Rashi commented: “If a woman have conceived seed, and born [a male]. This includes a case where she gave birth to [the male child as] a fleshy mass which had dissolved, so that it became liquefied and like seed, in which case his mother becomes impure because of the birth” [as if it were a normal child]. The explanation of this matter¹Ramban is clarifying Rashi’s words and saying that Rashi did not refer to a case where the abortion was a foetus filled with water, for in that event the mother does not become impure for the days prescribed for a male or for a female child. Rather, Rashi referred to a case where the child had been formed already etc. is that we know that the child has been formed already in human form, and then became liquefied, for anything that does not have a human form is not considered a child, and similarly, whatever is not fit to become a creature with a soul, is not considered a child. But even if it is a fleshy dissolved mass at the time of birth, it makes the mother impure [for the prescribed number of days] provided we recognize its form, such as a foetus with its human parts fashioned, in which case the mother is certainly impure, and if not [i.e., the matter is in doubt] she is impure because of a doubt. This is what this verse comes to include according to the words of our Rabbis.²Niddah 27b.
Now with regard to the implication of the verse the Rabbis have said:³Ibid., 31a. “Ishah ki thazria —⁴Literally: “if the woman has [an emission of] seed” first. — Then, as the verse continues, she will bear a male-child. if the woman emits seed first, she will bear a son.”⁵“And when the male is the first to emit semen, then she will bear a female-child.” The intent of the Rabbis was not that the child is formed from the woman’s seed, for although the woman has generative organs [i.e., ovaries] like those of the man, yet seed is not formed by them at all, or [if it is formed], that seed is not thick and does not contribute anything to the embryo. Rather, the Rabbis used the term “she emits seed” with reference to the blood of the womb, which gathers in the mother at the time of the consummation of coition, and attaches itself to the seed of the male. For in the opinion of the Rabbis the child is formed from the blood of the female and the white [semen] of the man, and both of them are called “seed.” Thus the Rabbis have said:³Ibid., 31a. “There are three partners in [the formation of] man: The male emits the white [semen], from which are formed the sinews, the bones, and the white substance in the eye. The female emits a red secretion from which are formed the skin, the flesh, the blood, the hair, and the black substance in the eye.”⁶“And the Holy One, blessed be He [i.e., the third partner in the formation of the child] gives him spirit and soul, beauty of features, power of sight, power of hearing, speech and walk, and understanding and rational faculty” (Niddah 31 a). The opinion of doctors as to the formation [of the embryo of the child] is also the same. In the opinion of the Greek philosophers,⁷See Vol. I, p. 76 (in Verse 18) where Ramban alludes to this controversy. however, the whole body of the child is formed from [the substance of] the blood of the mother, the father only contributing that generative force which is known in their language as hyly, which gives form to matter.⁸See ibid., p. 23. For there is no difference at all between the egg of a chicken which is laid because it was fructified by a male, and that laid as a result of the mother rolling herself in the dust, except that the egg [that had been fructified by a male] germinates into a young bird, while the other is not sown, nor beareth,⁹Deuteronomy 29:22. The thought here suggested is: “because the seed of the male was lacking, therefore it does not bear.” because it is deprived of the elemental heat which is its hyly. And if so, the word tazria [in ishah ki thazria] will be like u’cheganah zeiru’eha thatzmiach (as the garden causeth the seeds that are sown in it to spring forth).¹⁰Isaiah 61:11. — Ramban’s meaning is as follows: According to the view of the Rabbis [and the doctors] that the child is formed both by the seed of man and the secretion of woman, the expression ishah ki thazria can be understood in its simple meaning: “when the female emits her secretion” first etc. But according to the philosophers who say that the child is formed entirely from the body of the mother, and the male semen is merely a generative force which gives form to matter, then the word tazria can no longer mean “emitting,” but is like thatzmiach — “causes to spring up.” And so did Onkelos render it: “If a woman conceives.”

AND WE SHALL KNOW THEM. Their intention was to stop people from coming among them, as our Rabbis have said,¹⁷⁴Sanhedrin 109a. for they thought that because of the excellence of their land, which was as the garden of the Eternal,¹⁷⁵Above, 13:10. many will come there, and they despised charity. Lot, however, came to them with his riches and wealth [and was given permission to live in Sodom because] he either asked permission of them, or that they accepted him in honor of Abraham.
Now Scripture testifies that this was the intent of the people of Sodom, as it is said, Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom: pride, fullness of bread, and careless ease was in her and in her daughters; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.¹⁷⁶Ezekiel 16:49. The verse stating, And the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners against the Eternal exceedingly,¹⁷⁷Above, 13:13. This would seem to indicate that they sinned only against G-d but not against their fellow man. really means that they continued provoking and rebelling against Him with their ease and the oppression of the poor. It is this thought which Scripture expresses by saying, And they were haughty, and committed abomination before Me; therefore I removed them when I saw it.¹⁷⁸Ezekiel 16:50.
In the opinion of our Rabbis,¹⁷⁹Sanhedrin 109a. all evil practices¹⁸⁰Such as blasphemy, bloodshed, etc. (Ibid.) were rampant among them. Yet their fate was sealed because of this sin — i.e., they did not strengthen the hand of the poor and needy — since this sin represented their usual behavior more than any other. Besides, since all peoples act righteously towards their friends and their poor, there was none among all the nations who matched Sodom in cruelty.
Know that the judgment of Sodom was due to the superiority of the Land of Israel since Sodom is part of the inheritance of the Eternal,¹⁸¹II Samuel 20:19. and it does not suffer men of abominations. And just as it later vomited out a whole nation on account of their abominations,¹⁸²See Leviticus 18:25. so it now anticipated and saw that this entire people behaved worse than all nations towards Heaven and mankind. It thus laid waste heaven and earth for them, and the land was destroyed forever, never to be restored, since they became haughty on account of the goodness that was bestowed on them. The Holy One, blessed be He, thus made Sodom a token against the rebellious children,¹⁸³Numbers 17:25. that is, against the children of Israel who were destined to inherit it, even as He warned them: The whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and a burning… like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Eternal overthrew in His anger, and in His wrath.¹⁸⁴Deuteronomy 29:22. For there have been among nations those who were evil and exceedingly sinful, and yet He did not do to them as He did to Sodom. However it was all on account of the superiority of this land for there is the temple of the Eternal.¹⁸⁵Jeremiah 7:4. I plan to explain this in Seder Achrei Moth,¹⁸⁶Leviticus 18:24. if He Who taketh life and giveth life will sustain me in life.