Cytowanie Komentarza do Psalmów 55:10

And the whole earth was of one language and of common purpose. It appears that the entire incident of the Dispersion follows the principle that our Sages taught (Sanhedrin 71b): When the wicked gather together, it is bad for them and bad for the world; when the wicked are scattered, it is good for them and good for the world. For the righteous, the opposite is true. This is because when the wicked gather together, they devise evil plans against others. Additionally, they breed among themselves quarrels, conflicts, and hatred. This is the nature of the jealousies that exist between factions whose actions are not for the sake of Heaven but rather to make a name for themselves on earth. The root cause of this is that each of them has an external goal that divides their hearts from one another — for this one desires wealth and honor, that one excessive food, another excessive sexual pleasures, and yet another says “let us make a name for ourselves,” wanting to be elevated above others. From this, strife inevitably follows, both because they lack a unified purpose [for evil paths are many, while the good path is only one], and because each individual desires to achieve superiority and prominence over others. This trait is indeed prevalent among our people. Therefore, the dispersal of such groups is better than their gathering, as it is written, All workers of iniquity shall be scattered (Psalms 92:10). Nothing is better than creating space between those who cleave together [inappropriately], as it is written, Destroy, O Lord, divide their tongue, for I have seen violence and strife in the city (Psalms 55:10).

(10-30) In diesem Geschlechtsregister heben wir zunächst פלג hervor, dessen Name uns bereits 10, 25 im Zusammenhange mit dem Ereignis der Völkerteilung erklärt wurde כי בימיו נפלגה הארץ, und bemerken, wie die Stellen Psalm 55, 10. פלג לשונם und Richter 5, 15 בפלגות ראובן in der Wurzel פלג mehr ein soziales Zerwürfnis als eine mechanische Teilung erkennen lassen, so daß auch nach diesem Namen die Grundursache jener Völkerkatastrophe in einem inneren, geistigen Auseinandergehen gefunden werden dürfte. — Auch in diesem Geschlechtsregister dürfte vielleicht, wie oben in dem kainitischen und setitischen, die Andeutung einer Entwicklungsgeschichte gefunden werden. Die Namen: שרוג ,רעו ,פלג ,עבר ,שלח legen eine solche Vermutung nahe. שלה bezeichnete wieder das Fahrenlassen, Preisgeben der Masse, das Sichzurückziehen der Besseren, ohne Hoffnung, die Menge für das Bessere zu gewinnen. עבר wäre sodann nach ר׳ יהודה’s Erklärung zu כל העולם כלו מעבר אחד והוא מעבר :(ב"ר מ"א) אברם העברי אחר der vollendete Protest gegen die ganze übrige Zeitgenossenschaft. Sollte es kein Traum sein, daß, wie wir glaubten, die Sprachbildung aus einer Empörung der einzelnen gegen die einzuführende Zwingherrschaft hervorgegangen, so wäre es nicht unmöglich, daß diese Empörung aus dem semitischen Geschlecht ihren Ausgang genommen, in welchem die Ahnung des Göttlichen und Reinmenschlichen noch am lebendigsten vorhanden geblieben. Nachdem dann in פלג die Teilung sich vollzog, bezeichnete רעו das sich Zusammenfinden der Gleichgesinnten und שרוג die weitere Verzweigung derselben. Es wäre dies immerhin möglich. —

In fact, a Midrash (Tanchuma Ki Tissa 16) asks: “how could Moses possibly have learned the entire Torah within forty days? Is it not written (Job 11,40) ‘its measurements are longer than the earth and its width wider than the oceans?’” We are forced to answer that what G’d taught Moses during these forty days were the rules governing study of the Torah and their application. Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish, extrapolating on the spelling of the word ככלתו in our verse said that anyone teaching Torah who does not succeed in making its words as beloved as a bride is to her groom would have done better not to lecture at all. At the time when the Torah was received by the Jewish people it was as beloved to them as a bride to her groom. Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish added that just as a bride requires no fewer than 24 different kinds of ornaments, as mentioned in Genesis 2,22 ויבאה אל האדם, “G’d brought her (Chavah) to Adam,” so the Torah requires 24 ornaments [the numerical value of the letters in the word ויבאה is 24. Ed.]. G’d had decorated Adam’s bride with 24 ornaments. The ornaments are listed in Isaiah 3,18-23. Similarly, a Torah scholar needs to be decorated (thoroughly familiar) with 24 books; (the books of the Bible). Seeing that the Sabbath is perceived as the bride of the Jewish people, this may be the reason that the authors of the oral Torah divided tractate Shabbat into 24 chapters.
Another reason that the Sabbath is called כלה, “end, completion,” is that it occurred for the first time at the end of the six days of creation. It had been the objective, “end purpose,” of all that had been created before both in the heavens and on earth. The Sabbath in the celestial regions is perceived as the end of emanations. It is customary in our terrestrial world that as a man prepares for adulthood the final stage is that he picks a bride (after having established an economic base, acquired a field, or something like it, built a house). Solomon instructed us in this sequence of events when he wrote in Proverbs 24,27: “prepare your outside work; make ready what you have in the field; and after that build yourself a house.” The word אחר “afterwards,” in that verse is not a preposition but a command and refers to the founding of a family as making the acquisition of a bride the last of these endeavours. A similar construction is found in Psalms 55,10 פלג לשונם, ”confound their speech!” [where this root is used as a verb in the imperative instead of as an adjective or preposition. Ed.]