Еврейская мысль к Вайикра 20:5

The Torah frowns on excessive pursuit of material goods. Therefore we read "if you will listen to My commandments...you will gather in your harvest." This means you engage in necessary activities to assure yourself of your livelihood. Selling oneself to another person in order to gain financial security, and to escape one's responsibilities, is frowned on. The fact that even the most private possessions such as wife and children acquired during servitude, continue to belong to the master, demonstrates that the Torah's message to us is to rely on G'd and not on man. After all, it is He who has commanded the children of Israel "for to Me are the children of Israel servants." He did not take us out of Egypt in order for us to become slaves again. The pursuit of worldly goods is a waste of time, since we leave the world as naked as we came into it. (Job 1, 21, "I came naked out of my mother's womb, and naked will I return there.") The whole paragraph dealing with the Jewish servant can be understood allegorically as reflecting man's experience in this world. He enters alone, leaves alone, leaves his acquisitions behind, and when he expresses the desire to attach himself to a human master, he is brought to elohim, to be forcefully reminded of his error. In the seventh decade of his life, his vitality ebbs, and as he approaches his death, i.e. the time he returns to the grave, he does so chinam, chofshi, without any encumbrance. This is either due to physical decline or because of lack of energy to go on living. The wheel has turned, as a wheel is always apt to do. What had once been thought to be a continuous upward curve, has peaked and become a downward movement. (compare Exodus 21, 2-6) Man will wind up as a servant "forever" to his "Master" in the world of infinity. The purpose of the Torah has always been to liberate mortal man from the inevitable and depressingly terminal state of merely physical existence here on earth. Accepting the yoke of Torah is an incomparably easier burden than living with the thought of the futility of all earthly existence. One of the ways to achieve freedom from the obsessive character of the greed to amass more and more material, i.e. useless wealth, is the Torah's emphasis that one should be satisfied with the necessities of life. All the Torah's promises of reward for performing G'ds commandments are of this nature. "I will grant you rain at the appropriate time;" "you will gather in your grain harvest." "You will eat, be sated and bless the Lord." Performance of G'ds commandments will enable us to feel "satiated" when we have eaten. The greatest lesson in this respect was the experience of man, the heavenly bread the Israelites ate in the desert. This taught reliance on G'd, the futility of amassing for the future as long as one is under the loving care of G'ds Personal Providence.

The next meaning of the word is “anger”; comp. “And her anger (paneha) was gone” (1 Sam. 1:18). Accordingly, the term is frequently used in reference to God in the sense of anger and wrath; comp. “The anger (pene) of the Lord hath divided them” (Lam. 4:16); “The anger (pene) of the Lord is against them that do evil” (Ps. 34:17); “Mine anger (panai) shall go and I will give thee rest” (Exod. 33:14); “Then will I set mine anger” (panai) (Lev. 20:3); there are many other instances.

We must also point out that originators of false, baseless, and useless principles scheme and plan for the firm establishment of their faith; and tell their fellow-men that a certain plague will befall those who will not perform the act by which that faith is supported and confirmed for ever; this plague may one day accidentally befall a person, who will then direct his attention to the performance of that act, and adopt idolatry. It being well known that people are naturally most in fear and dread of the loss of their property and their children, the worshippers of fire spread the tale, that if any one did not pass his son and daughter through the fire, he will lose his children by death. There is no doubt that on account of this absurd menace every one at once obeyed, out of pity and sympathy for the child; especially as it was a trifling and a light thing that was demanded, in passing the child over the fire. We must further take into account that the care of young children is entrusted to women, who are generally weak-minded, and ready to believe everything, as is well known. The Law makes, therefore, an earnest stand against this practice, and uses in reference to it stronger terms than in any other kind of idolatry; namely, “he defileth my sanctuary, and profaneth my holy name” (Lev. 20:3). The true prophet then declares in the name of God that the very act which is performed for the purpose of keeping the child alive, will bring death upon him who performs it, and destruction upon his seed. Comp. “And I will set my face against that man and against his family,” etc. (ibid. 20:5). Know that traces of this practice have survived even to the present day, because it was widespread in the world. You can see how midwives take a young child wrapped in its swaddling-clothes, and after having placed incense of a disagreeable smell on the fire, swing the child in the smoke over that fire. This is certainly a kind of passing children through the fire, and we must not do it. Reflect on the evil cunning of the author of this doctrine; how people continued to adhere to this doctrine, and how, in spite of the opposition of the Law during thousands of years, its name is not blotted out, and its traces are still in existence.