Chasidut к Дварим 5:20
וַיְהִ֗י כְּשָׁמְעֲכֶ֤ם אֶת־הַקּוֹל֙ מִתּ֣וֹךְ הַחֹ֔שֶׁךְ וְהָהָ֖ר בֹּעֵ֣ר בָּאֵ֑שׁ וַתִּקְרְב֣וּן אֵלַ֔י כָּל־רָאשֵׁ֥י שִׁבְטֵיכֶ֖ם וְזִקְנֵיכֶֽם׃
И было, когда вы услышали глас посреди тьмы, когда гора горела огнем, вы приблизились ко мне, даже ко всем головам ваших колен и старейшинам вашим;
Kedushat Levi
5,21. “you (the Jewish people) said, here the Lord has shown us……..we have seen (realized) this day that when G’d speaks with man he is able to survive this experience., etc.”
Why should we die when the great fire consumes us, etc,.? The difficulty in these verses must strike any reader! Why should a people who had survived the experience of being addressed by G’d personally, suddenly become afraid of the thunder and lightning which accompanied the revelation?
I believe that a look at the Zohar on Parshat Pinchas, will help us understand this enigma. Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair is quoted there as saying that when a member of the gentile nations says something spiritually significant his body does not automatically move as a result of his speaking. Not so when an Israelite speaks of the same subject. The fact is that an Israelite has a soul equipped with the sprit of life, רוח חיים, i.e. life of a spiritual dimension. [There is no such Zohar quoting Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair that this editor has been able to find. Ed.]
Following the concept outlined by our author, seeing that we have been equipped with a spiritually more sensitive soul than the gentiles, as soon as a Jew opens his mouth in order to utter matters related to sanctity, even his entire body reacts to this by moving, as it feels that contact has been established between it and its origin, i.e. the Creator, its ultimate root. On the other hand, if G’d were to address members of the gentile nations directly, their bodies would not respond at all, seeing that their souls lack the sensitivity to holiness that is second nature to the Jew. Seeing that Jews are so sensitive to being exposed to holiness, it is not surprising that they were afraid that this phenomenon was a prelude to their death, i.e. the separation of their souls from their bodies. This feeling expressed itself in the kind of ecstasy that burns within man threatening to engulf him totally and burn him.
Tossaphot on Avodah Zarah 3 write concerning a question raised there on the exegesis of Deuteronomy 7,11: where the Torah writes that the commandments which had just been revealed to the people were to be preformed היום, “this day,” i.e. from this day onwards. The Talmud explains that the emphasis on performing the commandments “this day,” is meant to inform us that although performance of the commandments is scheduled for life in this world, the reward will be paid in a different world, i.e. the after death of the body.
According to the Talmud in Pessachim 56 it was the custom of the people of Jericho, when reciting the daily keriyat sh’ma in which we encounter line: היום על לבבך “this day, on your heart;” contrary to the Israelites in other cities not to pause before the words: על לבבך. Although the sages are on record as having disapproved of some of the customs of the people of Jericho, this was not one of the customs of which they disapproved. Tossaphot, in light of what we have written earlier, states that the word היום emphasizes the “here and now,” and ask why the sages while disapproving did not demand that they change their custom as they did concerning other matters they had disapproved of.
The answer offered is that whereas in Deuteronomy the Torah does not speak about the reward of the performance of the commandments but about the manner of their fulfillment, the words היום is to be understood literally. However, the performance of the commandment is obligatory daily, i.e. every “day” is היום, as far as the subject of the verse is concerned. When reward for performance of good deeds is the subject, there is a difference between Jews and gentiles, as the latter do not automatically qualify for an afterlife, so that G’d has to pay the their reward in this life.
In order to follow this subject better we must refer to the Talmud in Baba Metzia 114 where the point is made that whereas the Jewish people have been distinguished with the title, “אדם,” we never find that the gentiles are referred to by that complimentary title. The Talmud derives from this that when the Torah wrote in Numbers 19,14 that אדם כי ימות באהל that when a Jew, i.e. אדם, dies while in an enclosed space, house or tent, then the laws of ritual impurity that apply to people present in that same airspace apply only if the dead person was a Jew. A similar lesson can be learned from our verse here (5,21) where the Torah did not write אדם but האדם to alert us to the fact that not only Jews but any human being is included in the reminder that G’d may directly address any human being. The gentile, due to the limitations of his soul which we discussed, may not survive the experience of being addressed by G’d directly, whereas אדם, without the prefix ה i.e. a Jew, has no reason to be afraid of this. The line commencing with למה נמות, usually translated as “why should we die?,” is not to be understood as a question, but as a statement, albeit a reflexive one, meaning: “we, being אדם and not merely האדם, have no reason to fear that we will die, the reason being that we have been imbued with this great fire of religious fervor, האש הגדולה, which effectively shields us against the dangers faced by the souls of the gentiles if addressed by G’d directly. In fact, the Israelites, i.e. Moses as their mouthpiece, re-affirms that there is no other people than the Jewish people who is so endowed spiritually that they have survived the revelation at Mount Sinai with both mind and body intact. Moses spells out clearly that the reason why his people survived that tremendous experience was that enthusiasm, this fiery ecstasy, with which they acted at the time, [an example of which was their giving Moses a blank cheque by saying about the Torah to be received: נעשה ונשמע, “we will observe it as soon as we have studied it.” Ed.] This enthusiasm was so exhausting that they fainted and looked almost as if they had died.
Why should we die when the great fire consumes us, etc,.? The difficulty in these verses must strike any reader! Why should a people who had survived the experience of being addressed by G’d personally, suddenly become afraid of the thunder and lightning which accompanied the revelation?
I believe that a look at the Zohar on Parshat Pinchas, will help us understand this enigma. Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair is quoted there as saying that when a member of the gentile nations says something spiritually significant his body does not automatically move as a result of his speaking. Not so when an Israelite speaks of the same subject. The fact is that an Israelite has a soul equipped with the sprit of life, רוח חיים, i.e. life of a spiritual dimension. [There is no such Zohar quoting Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair that this editor has been able to find. Ed.]
Following the concept outlined by our author, seeing that we have been equipped with a spiritually more sensitive soul than the gentiles, as soon as a Jew opens his mouth in order to utter matters related to sanctity, even his entire body reacts to this by moving, as it feels that contact has been established between it and its origin, i.e. the Creator, its ultimate root. On the other hand, if G’d were to address members of the gentile nations directly, their bodies would not respond at all, seeing that their souls lack the sensitivity to holiness that is second nature to the Jew. Seeing that Jews are so sensitive to being exposed to holiness, it is not surprising that they were afraid that this phenomenon was a prelude to their death, i.e. the separation of their souls from their bodies. This feeling expressed itself in the kind of ecstasy that burns within man threatening to engulf him totally and burn him.
Tossaphot on Avodah Zarah 3 write concerning a question raised there on the exegesis of Deuteronomy 7,11: where the Torah writes that the commandments which had just been revealed to the people were to be preformed היום, “this day,” i.e. from this day onwards. The Talmud explains that the emphasis on performing the commandments “this day,” is meant to inform us that although performance of the commandments is scheduled for life in this world, the reward will be paid in a different world, i.e. the after death of the body.
According to the Talmud in Pessachim 56 it was the custom of the people of Jericho, when reciting the daily keriyat sh’ma in which we encounter line: היום על לבבך “this day, on your heart;” contrary to the Israelites in other cities not to pause before the words: על לבבך. Although the sages are on record as having disapproved of some of the customs of the people of Jericho, this was not one of the customs of which they disapproved. Tossaphot, in light of what we have written earlier, states that the word היום emphasizes the “here and now,” and ask why the sages while disapproving did not demand that they change their custom as they did concerning other matters they had disapproved of.
The answer offered is that whereas in Deuteronomy the Torah does not speak about the reward of the performance of the commandments but about the manner of their fulfillment, the words היום is to be understood literally. However, the performance of the commandment is obligatory daily, i.e. every “day” is היום, as far as the subject of the verse is concerned. When reward for performance of good deeds is the subject, there is a difference between Jews and gentiles, as the latter do not automatically qualify for an afterlife, so that G’d has to pay the their reward in this life.
In order to follow this subject better we must refer to the Talmud in Baba Metzia 114 where the point is made that whereas the Jewish people have been distinguished with the title, “אדם,” we never find that the gentiles are referred to by that complimentary title. The Talmud derives from this that when the Torah wrote in Numbers 19,14 that אדם כי ימות באהל that when a Jew, i.e. אדם, dies while in an enclosed space, house or tent, then the laws of ritual impurity that apply to people present in that same airspace apply only if the dead person was a Jew. A similar lesson can be learned from our verse here (5,21) where the Torah did not write אדם but האדם to alert us to the fact that not only Jews but any human being is included in the reminder that G’d may directly address any human being. The gentile, due to the limitations of his soul which we discussed, may not survive the experience of being addressed by G’d directly, whereas אדם, without the prefix ה i.e. a Jew, has no reason to be afraid of this. The line commencing with למה נמות, usually translated as “why should we die?,” is not to be understood as a question, but as a statement, albeit a reflexive one, meaning: “we, being אדם and not merely האדם, have no reason to fear that we will die, the reason being that we have been imbued with this great fire of religious fervor, האש הגדולה, which effectively shields us against the dangers faced by the souls of the gentiles if addressed by G’d directly. In fact, the Israelites, i.e. Moses as their mouthpiece, re-affirms that there is no other people than the Jewish people who is so endowed spiritually that they have survived the revelation at Mount Sinai with both mind and body intact. Moses spells out clearly that the reason why his people survived that tremendous experience was that enthusiasm, this fiery ecstasy, with which they acted at the time, [an example of which was their giving Moses a blank cheque by saying about the Torah to be received: נעשה ונשמע, “we will observe it as soon as we have studied it.” Ed.] This enthusiasm was so exhausting that they fainted and looked almost as if they had died.
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