Комментарий о цитате к Шмот 8:5

HIS GREATNESS, HIS MIGHTY HAND, AND HIS OUTSTRETCHED ARM. Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra commented: “[His greatness etc.] to bring you out from Egypt; and the signs²⁷⁹Mentioned in Verse 3. and wonders, which He did to Pharaoh; and what He did unto you in the wilderness,²⁸⁰Verse 5. in the matter of the manna.” But in my opinion it is incorrect, for now he [Moses] speaks only of the chastisement with which G-d admonished those who transgressed His will; [instead, the correct interpretation of the verse is as follows:] His greatness in that He exalted and elevated Himself when saying, Have thou this glory over me;²⁸¹Exodus 8:5. These are Moses’ words to Pharaoh to make the plague of frogs cease on the day fixed by Pharaoh. By tomorrow shall this sign be;²⁸²Ibid., Verse 19. And I will distinguish [between My people and thy people];²⁸²Ibid., Verse 19. that thou mayest know that the earth is the Eternal’s.²⁸³Ibid., 9:29. And His mighty hand [refers to], And I will put forth My hand, and smite Egypt;²⁸⁴Ibid., 3:20. the great work which the Eternal did [upon the Egyptians].²⁸⁵Ibid., 14:31. “Work” — literally: “hand.” And His outstretched arm [means] that He did not give the Egyptians relief and deliverance from the moment His hand was stretched out upon them, and He hath not withdrawn His hand from consuming²⁸⁶Lamentations 2:8. until He destroyed them. And what He did unto you in the wilderness,²⁸⁰Verse 5. [means] that He smote you [Israel] in the affair of the calf,²⁸⁷Exodus 32:35. in the fire that burned at Taberah,²⁸⁸Numbers 11:1-3. [in the affair of] the fiery serpents,²⁸⁹Ibid., 21:6. Kibroth-hattaavah,²⁹⁰Ibid., 11:35. the plague at Shittim,²⁹¹Ibid., 25:9. and the decree in the affair of the spies so that the hand of G-d was upon them until they came to this place. He [Moses] shortened, however, the account of the punishments that He inflicted upon them. And if so, Therefore shall ye keep all the commandment etc. that ye may be strong,²⁹²Verse 8. for His mighty hand strengthens those who keep His commandments, neither will He uphold the evildoers.²⁹³Job 8:20.

TEN THINGS WERE CREATED AT THE DUSK OF THE SABBATH, AND THEY ARE: THE MOUTH OF THE EARTH, ETC. Rambam: the Sages do not believe that G-d’s will is renewed every moment. Rather, when He first created things he made their natures such that whatever should happen to them will happen, whether that should be something constant, which we call natural, or some unusual thing that happens infrequently, which we call miraculous. They therefore said that on the sixth day He put it into the nature of the earth that Korach and his followers should be swallowed up by it, into the nature of the well that it should give forth water, into the nature of the donkey that she should speak, and so on. One might object that if all miracles were implanted into the nature of things during the six days of creation, why does the mishna single out these ten things? You should know, in answer to this, that they did not single them out because no miracles other than these were implanted into the nature of things. They meant simply that these were the only things that were put in during dusk, whereas the other miracles were put into the nature of things from the very beginning, at the moment they were made. They would say, for example, that when the waters were divided on the second day, it was made part of their nature that the Red Sea should part for Moses, and the Jordan for Joshua and Elisha. And when the sun was created on the fourth day, it was made part of its nature that it should stop in its orbit at a given time when spoken to by Joshua. This is so for all other miracles aside from these ten, which were put into the nature of those things during dusk.
He clarifies this further in his book the Guide for the Perplexed, 2:29. There, after quoting the midrash that says G-d stipulated with the sea that it should split for Israel and with all of what was created during the six days similarly (Bereshit Rabbah 5:5), he concludes: when G-d has a prophet perform a sign he tells him the moment at which what he is saying will come to pass, and it happens in accordance with the nature that was implanted into the thing.
But there is great difficulty with this position, for Moses said to Pharaoh, “for what time should I entreat for you… to excise the frogs” (Exodus 8:5), and Isaiah said, “request a sign from Hashem, your G-d, request it in the depths or high above” (Isaiah 7:11). And Gideon’s request of the sign with the wool involved two opposing possibilities (Judges 6:36). Midrash Shmuel writes in the name of Meiri that the Sages do not believe that these stipulations the midrash refers to were made in the permanent nature of the thing that was acted upon; they were undoubtedly speaking from the perspective of the Actor and His will. They mean to say that there was no change in His will, G-d forbid, for at the moment that He created the heavens and the earth and all that is within them His knowledge encompassed and included all of the things that would happen in the future; He knew that there would come a point at which He would change the nature of a particular created thing, and He created it with that in mind. The act of the miracle, therefore, was not a change in His knowledge or a new element in His will, etc.
This means that all the signs were created and done at that particular moment in time, and were not implanted into nature such that they should come into existence and be done at that moment. And although His knowledge already encompassed them we have already noted above on the mishna of “all is seen”, 3:15, that His knowledge does not turn the possible into the necessary. As such, all miracles depend on what a person chooses from among the things that are possible, as they are all done for people.
And I say that, just as Rambam resolves the paradox of “all is seen, but permission is given” using the verse “for My thoughts are not your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8), as I wrote on the mishna at 3:15, I will likewise answer that the end of that verse itself is the resolution of the great paradox inherent in the subject of miracles. For there is no change in His will, which is the meaning of the end of the verse, “and your ways are not My ways” (ibid.). His “ways” are His actions, as Moses said, “make Your ways known to me” (Exodus 33:13), which are His actions and administration of the world. When Isaiah says “your ways are not My ways” he means that you should not understand My ways in terms of your ways, and then this great paradox will not arise. Rambam himself writes in the Guide for the Perplexed at the end of 3:20: the terms supervision, knowledge, and intent when said of G-d are not the same as when said of us. When these different kinds of supervision, knowledge, and intent are conflated and treated as though they are the same, the abovementioned paradoxes arise. But when it becomes clear that whatever is said of us differs from what is said of Him, the truth becomes clear. And the prophet told us of the difference between the things said of Him and of us when he said “and your ways are not My ways.”
It also seems from his language in the above-quoted segment from Guide for the Perplexed 2:29²¹⁰There, Rambam calls the words of the midrash “strange,” though a better translation might be “extroardinary.” that although he explains the opinion of the Sages that way, it is not his own. It suffices for us that we have rescued Rambam, at least as far as his own opinion, even if we cannot rescue him regarding the opinion he attributes to the Sages.
But I say that the opinion of Meiri is that of the Sages as well and is not foreign to them, G-d forbid—it emerges clearly from explicit verses in the Tanach which every elementary schooler knows. When they say these things were created at the dusk of the Sabbath they are speaking only of His knowledge, like the mishna of “all is seen”, as Meiri says. As for their saying that G-d stipulated with the sea during the six days of creation that it should split, I feel that this is not at all about refuting the notion of a change in His will. Rather, this dictum is of the same tenor as the one on the verse “on the sixth day” that I quoted earlier in my commentary to 2:8, which says that G-d stipulated with all of creation that it only continue if the Jewish people accept the five books of the Torah. This has nothing to do with the nature of the created things, and speaks rather about the purpose of the creation of the world, which was only created for the Jewish people to receive the Torah; should they not accept it, the world will return to “formlessness and void”, for it was only created for this purpose. All of the conditions mentioned in the midrash were said in the same vein, using language that emphasized the merit and great importance of Israel. G-d stipulated with the sea during creation that it part for Israel, as it is for that purpose that He created the sea; and with the sun that is stand still for Joshua, as it is for that purpose that it was created.
They thus conveyed to us one of the fundamentals of faith: that everything was created solely for Israel, which accords with the midrash that says “ ‘In the beginning’—for the sake of Israel, who are called ‘the beginning’ “ (Vayikra Rabbah 36:4) and numerous other dicta that speak the praises and merits of Israel. Now we do not deny that, in saying this, they also meant that He knows the conclusions of things at their beginnings and sees the end of something from the very first moment, but only insofar as this is the nature of His knowledge, as in “all is seen”. But it was not their primary intent to rid us of the mistaken notion that His will and knowledge are subject to change, for they never entertained these ideas to begin with, as Isaiah the prophet already removed the confusion surrounding this by saying “My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not My ways,” meaning that they are not to be compared at all, which will prevent us from falling into the paradox. And in using the language “G-d stipulated” they meant the same thing as the midrash on “the sixth day”.
Our master Maharal offers “wondrous counsel and great wisdom” (cf. Isaiah 28:29) in Derech Chaim to negate this question altogether. He says that “knowledge” and “ability” and such are all actions of G-d, just as “and G-d knew” (Exodus 2:25) was an action of G-d. Just as the other actions attributed to Him do not necessitate a change or plurality within Him, neither do these, and in these matters we rely on the Kabbalah. See there.

NEITHER AFTER THEM SHALL BE SUCH [LOCUSTS]. Scripture informs us by way of prophecy that after them, there would never be such [locusts]. Now Rashi commented: “[The plague of locusts] which occurred during the days of Joel, of which it is said, There hath not been ever the like,³⁷Joel 2:2. teaches us that it was greater³⁸“Greater.” In our text of Rashi: “more grievous.” than that in the days of Moses. The one that happened in the days of Joel was caused by many species together: locust, caterpillar, canker-worm, palmer-worm.³⁹Joel 1:4. But the one which occurred in the days of Moses consisted only of one species, the like of which there never was and never will be.”
I have found difficulty in understanding the explanation of the Rabbi [Rashi]. It is written [of the plague which happened in the days of Moses], He also gave their produce unto the caterpillar,⁴⁰Psalms 78:46. and it is also written, He spoke, and the locust came, and the canker-worm without number.⁴¹Ibid., 105:34. Thus it is clear that in the plague which occurred in the days of Moses, there were also many species of locusts involved, unlike Rashi’s explanation above. Perhaps the Rabbi [Rashi] will answer by saying that in the days of Moses, locust proper was greater than that in the days of Joel, but all other species of locusts in the days of Joel were greater than those in the days of Moses. But these are useless arguments.⁴²It is illogical to say that the Torah here attached such importance to the plague just because one of the species involved was greater than that in the days of Joel, although in the number of species, the plague of locusts which occurred in the days of the prophet was unparalleled. (Mizrachi in explanation of Ramban’s intent.) Instead, [we must say that the expression], in all the borders of Egypt, is connected with the end of the verse: before them there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such there [in Egypt, but in other places there may be].⁴³There is thus no contradiction to the prophet Joel’s words. That plague of locusts did not occur in the land of Egypt. It is possible that because the land of Egypt is exceedingly moistened by the river, locusts are not abundant there, for these naturally come in years of drought, as is mentioned by the prophet Joel.⁴⁴For the water brooks are dried up (Joel 1:20).
Now Rabbeinu Chananel⁴⁵A Rabbi of Kairwan, North Africa, who flourished in the first half of the eleventh century, just when the Gaonic period in Babylon was about to come to a close. Rabbeinu Chananel’s commentaries on the Talmud are among the most important works in Rabbinic literature. He also wrote a commentary on the Torah, which has been lost in the course of time, except for important extracts from it which are found mostly in the commentary of Bachya ben Asher. Some extracts are found in the works of Ramban and in the Sermons of Yehoshua ibn Shuib, a pupil of Rashba. An edition of mine of these collected explanations of Rabbeinu Chananel has recently appeared through the Mosad Harav Kook, Jerusalem, and they indicate a wide spectrum of interests on the part of the author in Biblical themes. has written in his commentary on the Torah: “From the time that Moses our teacher prayed [for the removal of the locusts] till now, the locusts have not caused damage to the entire land of Egypt, and if an attack of them does occur in the Land of Israel and they proceed to enter within the border of Egypt, they do not devour the produce of the land. People say that this is known by all. Come and see! In the case of frogs, Moses said, Only in the river they will remain,⁴⁶Above, 8:5. and therefore the altamtzach — [the Arabic word for frogs] — have remained in the river till now. However, in the case of the locusts it is written, There remained not one locust in all the border of Egypt.⁴⁷Further, Verse 19. It is of a phenomenon of this kind that Scripture says, Speak ye of all His marvellous works. ”⁴⁸Psalms 105:2. Thus the language of the Rabbi.
In my opinion, the plain meaning of the verse, [neither after them shall be such], is that because the plague of locusts is known to come in all generations, and moreover since this one [in the days of Moses] came in a natural way, it having been the east wind that brought the locusts,⁴⁹Verse 13. [and there was thus reason to believe that such a plague would again come upon Egypt in a natural way], Scripture therefore states that such locusts were the greatest that ever occurred in the natural order of things. Neither before them were there such locusts as they, nor after them shall be such. Through the magnitude of the plague, the Egyptians thus knew that it was a special act of G-d, since the like never happened before. [The plague] that occurred in the days of Joel was likewise a special act of G-d, [and hence Scripture also describes it by saying, There hath never been the like].³⁷Joel 2:2.

במסות BY TRIALS — through trials imposed upon Him He showed them His mighty deeds, as e.g., (Exodus 8:5) “Boast yourself over Me”, whether I am able to do so: here you have a trial (putting God to the proof).