ייִדישער מחשבֿה אויף רות 4:12

Since the effort expended on creating anything that is known not to endure is wasteful, (compare chapter 58) and since we cannot ascribe activities to G'd that are wasteful or vain, we are faced with the problem why G'd extended Himself to take the Jewish people out of Egypt, lead them to the holy land, had them build a Temple by Solomon and achieve unheard of glory, only to let it all collapse four hundred years later. Philosophers offer two explanations. One is that G'ds prescience, foreknowledge, was inadequate, and that G'd involved Himself in all these efforts because He had not foreseen the end. The second explanation is that G'd lacked the power to forestall certain events. Since either of these explanations assumes a lack of perfection on G'ds part, they are inadmissible. Some Jewish philosophers including Gersonides, wish to describe G'ds foreknowledge of events as limited to the type of events which are not subject to decisions made by humans. They claim that G'd knows human decisions before they have been made, only when the latter correspond to the laws of nature as formulated at the time of creation. In other words, those human decisions that are only apparently free, such as the food intake necessary for survival, sleep necessary in order to function normally, wearing of protective clothing against the rigours of the weather, are things G'd knows all about in advance. Decisions of man which are truly free however, G'd does not know about until such a decision is actually made. In this way Gersonides explains why Moses wanted to refuse the appointment to lead the Jewish people out of Egypt, since he felt that the ultimate success could not be known beforehand. He thought that this had been the reason G'd had had to bring the deluge or to destroy Sodom. Following this line of reasoning, we could understand why G'd is described as vayinachem, He reconsidered. This kind of philosophy however, is opposed to our traditional concept of G'ds perfection. Maimonides teaches that G'd has full knowledge of the Past and the Future, being fully aware of any combination of events that will or might occur. Any other view would conceive of G'ds perfection being flawed somehow. If a deluge became necessary at a certain moment in human history, this was not due to inadequate foreknowledge by G'd, nor to inadequate planning by Him, but was inherent in the character of man himself. G'd had constructed man in a way that makes attainment of his ideal state an extremely difficult task. It is only through the passage of time and the lessons learned from history that man will ultimately achieve the ideal state that is his purpose. The Zohar Parshat Lech Lecha, 125, states that the reason the tzaddik, righteous person is compared to the date palm (Psalms 92,13) is, that once it is cut down it may take seventy years for another palm tree to replace it. Similarly, the righteous are not easily replaced. Also, since both a male and a female palm tree are needed in order for that tree to produce fruit, a tzaddik unless matched with a tzaddeket, i.e. a suitable wife is not really a tzaddik at all. Abraham and Sarah are classic examples of such a well matched pair, of course. What this means concerning our problem is that only in the fullness of time will man and woman reach the goal the Creator has set for them. Setbacks in their progress toward that goal are not due to any shortcomings by their Creator. If we conceive of mankind as a pool of raw material from which the best is to be selected and nurtured, then we get an idea of early mankind. The generations until Noach were predominantly earthy in their orientation, and only a very few were capable of that refinement of mind and spirit that enabled them to become the strain through which all mankind would ascend towards its goal. G'd had been aware of course, at the very outset of that situation. The word vayinachem means to rue something one knew beforehand would happen if the premise on which one had based one's thinking changes. It does not imply a change of thinking on the part of the subject, rather it reflects a change of circumstances on the part of the object of one's thinking. Since it was man that had changed, G'ds decision to prune mankind radically in order to refine the best strain was not a change of heart on G'ds part. Again, from Noach to Abraham no one was found from whom this strain could be refined still further. When Isaiah 51,2, proclaims "look upon Abraham your progenitor, and upon Sarah who suffered your birthpangs," the prophet wants us to know that our origins do not go back any further than to that pair of human beings. Inasmuch as creation itself had served little purpose until the advent of Adam, the first human being, the early generations of man found their real justification of existence only in the fact that they somehow produced a Noach and an Abraham. Abraham is told by G'd "I will make you a great nation," not "I will appoint you, or I will place you etc." In order to become a Jewish nation further changes have to take place before they can qualify for that task. Even when the Jewish people are described as "hail you Israel, a nation saved by the Lord," they are still not yet in their final mould and will have to undergo further refinements with the help of forty eight prophets, sufferings and tragedies. In the fullness of time the ultimate fully refined product will emerge which will represent the objective towards which G'd had striven all along. Israel as a nation, and mankind as a species, are being subjected to a program G'd Himself has set up, although the freedom of the individual is not being impaired thereby in the slightest. Midrash Rabbah Ruth section five on Ruth chapter 4,12, "may the Lord repay your labour and may your wages be complete from the Lord your G'd under whose wings you have come to find protection," says in the name of Rabbi Bunim, that we know the earth has "wings", that the sun has "wings", that shachar, morning has "wings", that cherubs have "wings" and that seraphim, angels have "wings". See how great is the power of the righteous, since they do not rely on the "wings" of any of the above mentioned, but on the "shade" of the One who has said "let there be a universe," as is written in Psalms 36,8, "how precious is Your favour o Lord, human beings can find protection under Your wings." (The Midrash lists scriptural proof for the five "wings" described) Our sages have listed five domains to which men turn for help in securing their needs when they feel the Lord has turned away from them. The "wings" of the earth represent nature and our knowledge of natural law, described by our sages also as "Prince of the earth." When king Assa consulted doctors instead of praying to G'd, he committed a grievous error. (Chronicles II 16,12) Already previously, when engaged in fighting Basha, king Assa had relied on a gentile ally rather than ask G'd for help. This is why he was punished. The "wings" of the sun, refers to the knowledge of astrology. Those who rely on such knowledge to plan their lives, are equally contemptuous of G'd. Solomon who describes people as "under the sun," refers to the kind of people who put stock in their knowledge of astrology. The "wings" of the cherubs refers to those who feel they receive guidance from invisible spirits who control the orbits of the planets. The "wings" of the seraphim would refer to the disembodied power that controls all movement, in short to "time" as a determinant in the universe. The "wings" of the morning, (Psalms 139,9) would refer to the domain which our sages call "the prince of the day."

The author wonders why Rashi accepts as facts matters that even the Midrash only voices as a suspicion. (1) "Israel loved Joseph because he was a ben zekunim, son of his old age. When the brothers saw this they hated him." Here we find that the real reason for their hatred was not related to his tale bearing, something they recognized as being due simply to his immaturity. They believed that Jacob's love for Joseph precluded Jacob from loving them. The letter mem in the words mikol banav, is to be understood like the letter mem in the words ma-asser mikol meaning "a tenth of all." Here too the meaning would bem "The brothers saw that of all his sons, Jacob loved Joseph." They all felt relegated to the status of sons of concubines vis a vis Joseph. Being aware of the status of Ishmael in Abraham's household and Jacob's own status in Isaac's household when compared to Esau, his father's favorite, the brothers concluded that they themselves were to be excluded, and that the colored coat was evidence that Joseph had been selected to be the carrier of the tradition. Had they been right, they could have attempted to obtain a blessing by deceit, just like their father Jacob had done. In that case, they would have concealed their feelings towards Joseph. In fact, however, their hatred was confined, at least initially, to their inability to talk to Joseph peaceably. (6) When Joseph started having dreams and revealed the nature of his thinking by prattling on about them, the hatred intensified and brotherly love receded still further, until finally no more is said about hatred, but we hear only about jealousy. Thus a plan was formed to take action against the object of their jealousy. We find something similar in the relationship between Saul and David. Saul's jealousy was stirred into action by the growing success of David (Samuel I 18,14-16). The dream in which Joseph saw his brothers' sheaves of grain bowing down to his own sheaf reflected the fact that when later on the brothers encounter Joseph on their first trip to Egypt, they paid homage to him since they were in need of obtaining grain from him. At that time, they did not bow down to Joseph per se, since they were unaware of Joseph's identity at that time. In the second dream, reference is made to the time when they would pay homage to him as a ruler over them. Perhaps they ridiculed him when they said, "Do you want to be king over us?" meaning that such a thing could never be until their descendants had increased sufficiently to warrant establishing a nation and a monarchy. Or, they asked, "Do you wish to rule amongst us?" As Onkelos suggests, they accused Joseph's dreams as reflecting his fantasies during his waking hours. Once the brothers had convinced themselves that they were permitted to dispose of Joseph, or were even duty-bound to do so, they planned to do it far away from home so as to have a free hand and not be inhibited by the proximity of their father. Nablus is approximately a day's journey from Hebron, and they knew that Joseph would visit from time to time. Midrash Rabbah's suggestion is that from the word et, it is clear that the brothers' primary concern was to "tend to themselves." A new element into the frequent visits by Joseph of his brothers is introduced. Previously, due to the brothers grazing their sheep in the vicinity of Hebron, Joseph would visit by day and be back home by evening. This was no longer the case. No doubt, Joseph had not planned to stay away longer than necessary and to report back to his father. Since G-d did not want lo postpone His plan, He assisted Joseph when Joseph left the beaten trail not having found his brothers in Nablus and went to look for them. Joseph imagined that the man whom he encountered who seemed to know who he was, would certainly know where his far more famous brothers were. This is why he said merely, "I seek my brothers," without bothering to identify the brothers further. Sometimes G-d uses the very efforts man makes to thwart His plans as instruments to advance His plans. This is what Joseph had in mind when he said at a much later stage, "G-d intended for the good what you had intended for evil." The apparently superfluous words of the angel, "They have moved from here," give rise to the comment of our sages that they had severed brotherly relations with Joseph, and that their very departure from Shechem (Nablus) was proof of this. What the man meant to tell Joseph was that the brothers' departure itself was far more relevant than the place they had moved to. (2) The brothers' attitude towards Joseph was unanimous, though they disagreed on the method of implementation. Each of them considered how to rid themselves of the evil forces that they felt Joseph represented. In Jeremiah 18,18, we find a similar dilemma facing those who wanted to silence the prophet. Their course of action was "let us go and bad-mouth him, then we will no longer have to listen to his rebukes.” They too wanted to avoid laying a hand on him directly. (3) The brothers had intended that disposing of Joseph should not bring any further consequences. Had they given the impression that robbers had attacked him, surely the robbers would have taken the colored coat, but would have left the body. This would have set off a hunt after the robbers. The idea of putting him in a pit and preserving the coat would explain that no remains were found, and would prevent a search being instituted. In this way they would escape retribution by their father. They hoped to escape retribution by G-d by saying, "Let us see what will happen to his dreams!" What they meant was that if his dreams had indeed been Divine messages, they were anyways powerless to prevent their realization. If Joseph's dreams would be realized, at least they would know that they were meant to be realized. In that event, G-d Himself would prevent them from actually becoming guilty of bloodshed. If, on the other hand, G-d would not save Joseph, the brothers would feel at ease for having opposed their father whose love of Joseph they considered misplaced, and it would have proved to Joseph they considered misplaced, and it would have proved to them that Joseph had deserved his fate. (7) Jacob may have chosen that day since he had heard the brothers had decided to graze their flocks so much further from home. (9) Reuben may have hoped to dissuade Joseph from his mode of behavior and to save him in that manner, although in order to get his way with his brothers, he had to use more devious language to conceal his plan. Reuben explained to his brothers that they must make allowance for the possibility of a natural means of Joseph surviving, if they wanted to escape responsibility for having murdered him. Relying on G-d performing a miracle to save Joseph is not enough to claim that not only the brothers' will but also G-d’s will had been done, should Joseph die as a result of their actions. Rashi's comment that verse twenty-two had been said by the holy spirit, means that the second part of the verse is a report to us, the readers, not of the conversation that took place between Reuben and his brothers, but that the Torah added this line as evidence that Reuben was not lying when he said to the brothers in 42,22, "I told you not to sin against the lad!" The caravan looked like a typical Ishmaelite caravan from the distance, but on closer inspection turned out to be a group of Midianites. Since the former usually carried merchandise down to Egypt, Yehudah suggested they sell Joseph to the Ishmaelites. Later they recognised the Midianites, a special branch of the tribe of Ishmaelites. Since Yehudah had not been aware of everything Reuben had in mind, namely to bring Joseph back to their father, he advised in keeping with the expressed intention of Reuben, that they refrain from laying a hand on Joseph themselves, and that they merely sell him. Since Joseph was their flesh and blood, they did not want to become guilty of murder, did not even want indirect guilt on their conscience. (8) In order to forestall any search or further inquiries, they then treated Joseph's colored coat in such a way that the impression would be created that he had fallen victim to a ferocious beast. Jacob's mourning was indicative of his despair to ever see Joseph again. The contrast between Jacob's behavior and that of David, when the latter lost his first son by Bat Sheva, is explained in Midrash Tanchuma Parshat Vayigash (compare Samuel II 11,12). (10) Jacob mourned himself, having a tradition that should a son of his die during his lifetime, he, Jacob, would end up in purgatory. This accounts for his reference, "For I will go down to my son to she-ol," the latter word meaning gehinnom, i.e purgatory. This subject and the need for all of his twelve sons to play their part in the founding of the Jewish nation is discussed in Chapter 31. Jacob hoped that this would be the last and only mourning he would have to observe before his death. In this way, his refusal to be comforted was not a complaint against what fate had decreed against him. Since Jacob was aware that his son must have died because of a sin he had committed, and that this in turn reflected on the manner in which he had raised him, acceptance without further mourning would indicate that he, Jacob, had not been sufficiently chastened by what he had suffered, and that just as in the case of makkat mardut, lashes imposed by Rabbinic tribunal for a person's obstinacy in not submitting to the Rabbis' decision, a further series of lashes is administered until the victim changes his attitude. Jacob was afraid then that if he did not mourn sufficiently he might be in line for further chastisement. This is similar to what Job says (Job 9,27-28), "Should I say I will forget my complaint and comfort myself, I am afraid of all my sorrows, I know that You will not acquit me." Anyone acting differently would be like someone whose I.O.U. had been paid off, but had not been destroyed by the creditor. The brothers' intention had been fulfilled as soon as Joseph was sold to Egypt, a country from which slaves could not escape. Thus the brothers were no longer worried about Joseph's dreams becoming realized. Even when they came to Egypt during the famine, they never thought of him in that connection. G-d had to put in motion all these events in order for Israel eventually to become fit to become G-d’s chosen nation once they would leave Egypt. If the brothers were not punished, it is not because they were not free to do otherwise, but because they acted freely, convinced that their conduct was justified. (4) Midrash Tanchuma, which pictures G-d as having been involved in the brothers' plan, wishes to direct our attention to the fact that the ultimate benefit which accrued to the brothers from their action, is proof that it enjoyed Divine sanction, and that if the brothers had not done what they did, G-d would have been forced to seek other means to set in motion a chain of events leading to similar results. After the lesson we have learned from the first story about events showing a dovetailing of G-d’s plans with the freely executed actions of man, the second is even more impressive. (11) It demonstrates that G-d wanted the founder of Jewish royalty to be born from a union of Yehudah and Tamar. The latter was a fit mother for royalty both because of her conduct and because she was a descendant of Shem, the king of Salem (Bereshit Rabbah 85). Yehudah, being unable to watch the grief of his father, had moved away and befriended Chirom. This association led to the selection of Bat Shua as his wife, Yehudah's motivation apparently being a combination of financial and esthetic considerations. Since Bat Shua was from a distinguished family, her ancestry is mentioned in spite of her own name not being revealed. (12) Had Yehudah paid more attention to the personality of his wife, his sons would presumably have turned out better. When he got around to selecting a wife for his oldest son Er, he chose better than for himself. This, however, failed to inspire his son, and that is the reason the latter avoided procreation with Tamar. Since the duty to procreate is universal, and since there is no need to spell out the penalty as a warning, Er died for his sin of omission. In this way, what appears to have been G-d’s plan, namely to produce the source of Jewish monarchy through the union of Yehudah and Tamar, seems to have suffered a setback. Onan also refused to have children with Tamar, being aware that any offspring from her would not really be considered as his own. G-d’s plan thus appeared to have suffered a further setback. The participants' free choice was the cause of these delays in carrying out G-d’s plan. If Onan felt that children with Tamar would not be counted as his children, seeing they would be from a levirate union, having relations with his sister-in-law for purposes other than procreation would be incestuous and thus punishable by death. (13) Now Yehudah's plan for a union between his remaining son and Tamar was postponed due to Sheylah's tender age. He wanted to wait for Sheylah to attain both physical and spiritual maturity so that when he would eventually marry Tamar, he would perform his marital duties properly. As far as Yehudah was concerned there was no specific time-limit for the postponement of the marriage between Sheylah and Tamar. Tamar did not feel that she needed to accept such delay silently. The names Er and Onan are suggestive of their respective deaths, arirut meaning barrenness, whereas aninut conveys the pain and anguish caused one's progenitors through one's untimely death. The name Sheylah suggests the disappointment in store already at his birth in a disappointing, illboding place (38,5). Meanwhile Tamar was waiting, widowed, for Sheylah to attain manhood and for her to become his wife. (14) She had not been aware that Yehudah had had a different timetable in mind for her marriage to Sheylah than had applied when she had been married to Onan. In removing her widow's garments, Tamar had planned to remind Yehudah of his promise in the event he had forgotten same. Covering herself with a veil, adorning herself, and placing herself at a site where she hoped to encounter her father-in-law on the way to Timnah, she hoped to find favor in his eyes so that she would be given to Sheylah. Her plan was sound, and she had no reason to think that Yehudah would suspect her of being a harlot, seeing that both her garments and her veil indicated her chastity. It had not occurred to her that Yehudah would suggest a sexual relationship without even inquiring after her name, i.e. who she was. Since according to the laws existing at that time, a union with one's father-in-law was permissible, Tamar preferred the certainty of the union offered now to the uncertainty of a union with Sheylah in the future. She asked Yehudah for a proper token of his esteem so as to have future evidence of the validity of the union now taking place between them. Since it was customary to pay off harlots after they had performed their part of the bargain, Tamar's insistence on a pledge before the union, marked her as different. Her insistence on receiving personalized items as a pledge, made it obvious that she was only concerned with the performance of the levirate act of marriage to produce offspring from this distinguished man. Yehudah's endeavors to retrieve his ring and staff to avoid being involved in a scandal and his desisting eventually to avoid drawing too much attention to himself petered out since he had made a sincere attempt to pay the promised young goat. The statement by the townspeople nearby that there had not been a harlot in their neighborhood proves that it had been Yehudah who had jumped to the wrong conclusion about the veil Tamar had covered her face with. Since Tamar's status was one of shomeret yibbum, waiting for consummation of the levirate marriage, her pregnancy led to her death sentence in accordance with the laws of infidelity governing that region. (15) Possibly, both Yehudah and Sheylah had been informed, since they were the only ones with whom Tamar would have been permitted to have sexual relations, and whose admission to such relations would have saved her from being burned. Yehudah's statement "Take her out and let her be burned," means "We did not have relations with her, therefore we cannot save her from her penalty.” Tamar did not send her pledge to Yehudah via the judge so as not to embarass him in case he wanted to own up and declare his being responsible for her pregnancy. Yehudah's statement "She is more righteous than I," reflects that what he had done to her had been quite legal, since she had been fit to become his wife, that Tamar also had acted with the proper intention so that not only the act had happened to be legally in order. This is the reason then that his admission was so praiseworthy. The praiseworthy conduct of Tamar was commented upon many hundreds of years later, when Boaz had become the father of Ruth's child, the latter having invoked the same kind of right Tamar had once invoked (Ruth 4,12). Both are portrayed as having been motivated by the purest and most noble intentions. The fact that both of these women played a major role in the founding of the davidic dynasty can only reflect Divine intervention. Our sages, in their deep insight, comment when interpreting the words "She is more righteous than I" that this comment was made by heaven to show that the turn of events was not haphazard, but the outcome of heavenly planning. Yehudah did not continue to live with Tamar, seeing that he would thereby commit an injustice against his son Sheylah whom he had denied Tamar only to take her for himself. The twins Tamar gave birth to reflect heavenly planning at work also, since through a single act of union Tamar produced seed for both her deceased husbands. If, whenever the Torah mentions Yehudah's offspring, the two sons who had died prematurely are mentioned, we may infer that there is a reason for this. True, Aaron's two sons Nadav and Avihu are also mentioned on frequent occasions after they had died, but in their case the reason is to explain why Aaron's younger son became High Priest after him. Their names being mentioned is not as strange, therefore, as the repeated references to Er and Onan. To have these two long deceased sons mentioned in the census taken in Numbers 26,19 may therefore be explained by their having lived on in the persons of Peretz and Zerach respectively. Perhaps the struggle described about each of the babies wanting to be the first to be born suggests that each one wanted to replace Er and Onan vicariously, both of whom had had to wait a long time to be re-incarnated in this fashion. We have explained earlier that ever since Jacob's time, natural birthright was something that has been fought over. The midwife who thought that she was earmarking the firstborn when she tied the string on his hand, stood corrected when the firstborn turned out to be the younger one after all.