ציטירנדיקער פּירוש אויף מלכים א 19:11

A more rational approach: The author speaks of the Kingdom of Heaven. Solomon warns man not to approach it over and beyond one’s mental capacities. We find other verses in Scripture describing G’d as מושל, ruler, such as Psalms 22,29: כי לה' המלוכה ומושל בגויים, “for kingship is the Lord’s and He rules the nations.” Keeping this thought in mind, Solomon warns you that when you sit down to eat with the ruler you better be clear what nearness to G’d entails, i.e. who qualifies for such an elevated station in life. You must appreciate that the food served at G’d’s table is soul-food, not of the type that is served at the table of a king of flesh and blood. The food you receive there is known as חכמה, the spiritual equivalent to the לחם, “bread,” served here on earth by human kings. The words בין תבין את אשר לפניך mean in essence that you must be sure to comprehend things about the nature of G’d by what is לפניך, “by what is before your eyes,” i.e. by the historical record of G’d’s actions. This is also what David said in Psalms 8,4: “when I behold Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars that You set in place.” The word בין, “between,” suggests that there are two distinct kinds of insights that one must possess in order to properly appreciate the grandeur of G’d and His impact on history as well as on our individual fates. The very concept G’d, Creator, is not a point of departure in one’s thinking but is a conclusion one arrives at after having weighed all the phenomena we are familiar with. This is the meaning of Deut. 4,39: והשבות אל לבביך כי ה' הוא האלו-הים, “and let your heart come to the conclusion that the Lord is your G’d, etc.” When Elijah experienced a personal revelation at Mount Chorev after he had been disillusioned subsequent to what he thought would be G’d’s triumph at Mount Carmel, he had to experience a variety of supernatural phenomena before finally, a most insignificant phenomenon, a whisper, proved to be the real thing, the Presence of G’d (Kings I 19,11-12).
It is due to such considerations that Solomon hints that several insights have to be gained in order to appreciate certain truths about G’d.
If one is an intellectually oriented person, Solomon warns that one should not allow one’s intellectual curiosity to cause one to bite off more than one can chew (intellectually speaking); he couches the warning in these words: “thrust a knife in your gullet.” What he means is simple: you would do better to commit suicide than to reach beyond your intellectual capacity in coming close to the Lord. Solomon phrases this more clearly in Kohelet 7,16: “don’t act the wise man to excess or you will be dumbfounded.” You can see what happened to the two sons of Aaron who were guilty precisely of the arrogance of overestimating their mental/moral capabilities when they were described at the revelation on Mount Sinai as feasting their eyes on divine visions, breaching barriers that had been designed to prevent precisely such a disaster from occurring (compare Exodus 19,24 as well as 24,10). Death was decreed for them because they approached domains which were beyond what they were allowed to approach. This is the meaning of the opening lines of our Parshah.

באלוני ממרא, “at the terebinths of Mamre.” The Torah informs us of the site where the circumcision took place. This was also the place where he received an immediate sign that G’d appreciated Avraham’s deed.
We find that manifestations of G’d’s presence to the prophets occur by means of 1) fire; 2) wind; 3) water, and 4) earth [either of the four basic raw material the terrestrial earth is made of. Ed.] G’d appeared to Moses in a burning bush (Exodus 3,2). He also appeared to the entire Jewish nation in an environment of fire (Deuteronomy 4,36: “He let you see His great fire, and you heard His words out of the fire”). In Exodus 24,17 G’d’s manifestation is described as “a consuming fire on top of the mountain.”
In connection with the ascent to heaven by the prophet Elijah we read in Kings II 2,1 “when the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind, etc.” In Kings I 19,11 והנה ה' עובר ורוח גדולה וחזק מפרק הרים, ”there was a great and mighty wind; splitting mountains and shattering rocks by the power of the Lord.” We also encounter a manifestation of G’d through a mighty wind in Job 38,1 “Then the Lord replied to Job out of the tempest and said, etc.”
An instance of G’d manifesting Himself by means of water is found in Ezekiel 1,1 “It was in the thirtieth year... when I was in the community of exiles by the river Kevar, etc.” We encounter another example of G’d manifesting Himself by means of water in Ezekiel 1,24 ”I could hear the sound of their wings like the sound of mighty waters, like the sound of Shaddai."
We find G’d manifesting Himself in connection with earth in Ezekiel 43,2 “the whole earth is filled with His glory.” We also find a revelation described as “and the earth was lit up by His Presence.” In this instance, G’d manifested Himself to Avraham by means of a tree. The Midrash uses the word אלוני ממרא to emphasise the fact that these were trees, אילנות. Actually, Mamre was the name of one of Avraham’s close associates as we know from 14,13 “Mamre the Emorite, the brother of Aner and Eshkol who were allies of Avram.” Had the Torah only wanted to tell us that Avraham circumcised himself near the place where Mamre lived, it would have been appropriate to describe the area as ערבות ממרא, “the fields of Mamre.” The emphasis on the word אלוני shows that the Torah wanted to draw our attention to the fact that we are talking about a tree or trees. When Avraham told the men who came to visit to rest “under one of the trees,” this shows that there was more than one tree.
Why did G’d choose a tree to be the site at which He manifested Himself to Avraham on this occasion? It was because the angel was going to tell him that within a year he and Sarah would have a son. He would experience something similar to that which was experienced by an aged tree which still produced fruit. It is written in Job 14,7-9: “There is hope for a tree; if it is cut down it will renew itself; its shoots will not cease. If its shoots are old in the earth, and its stump dies in the ground, at the scent of water it will bud and produce branches like a sapling.” We also have a verse comparing the righteous to trees in Psalms 1,3 “He (the righteous) is like a tree planted beside streams of water which yields its fruit in season.” This is also how Rabbeinu Chananel explains our verse.

ושבת עד ה' אלוקיך, “and (then) you will return to the Lord your G–d;” elsewhere (Deut.23,15) it says in indirect speech: ושב ה' אלוקיך את שבותך ורחמך, “and the Lord your G–d will return with your captives and have mercy on you. Why does this have to be repeated? In the Talmud, tractate “Yuma”, folio 86, the Talmud says that repentance is important as it hastens the arrival of the redemption. This is based on Isaiah 59,20: ובא לציון גואל, ”and the Redeemer will come to Zion,” why? The verse continues with ושבי פשע ביעקב, “when the sinners among Yaakov have repented.” Rabbi Yossi bar Yehudah added that when a person transgresses a commandment once he is forgiven. By the time he transgresses a fourth time he is no longer subject to forgiveness. He bases himself on Amos 2,6: “thus said the Lord; for three transgressions of Israel, for four I will not revoke it (evil decree);” this is how the Talmud in tractate Yuma folio 86 understands that verse. I heard a reason for this attributed to Rabi Meir Levi, who stated that access to the Lord is guarded by three different “fences.” The first is overwhelming noise, the second is fire, and the third is a region of strong wind; finally there is a region in which almost inaudible sound is heard; (Compare Kings I 19, 11-12) in each region of these fences there are angels. When a person sins for the first time, the angels in the first region obstruct such a person’s access to commit further sins. This results in his obtaining forgiveness [as without this he would continue to sin having started to do so. Ed.] This process continues in varying degrees if he commits a second or third sin [without having repented in the interval. Ed.] When he sins a fourth time, having already breached the fences separating him from the Presence of G–d three times, he is no longer subject to forgiveness, as we know from Isaiah 65,3-7: “the people who provoke My anger who continually, to My very face, sacrifice in gardens and burn incense on tiles etc. etc. such things make My anger rage, like fire blazing all day long and I will not stand idly by but will repay deliver their sins into their bosom and the sins of their fathers as well.” In other words, G–d is patient until sinning has become a pattern of the sinner’s lifestyle before He reacts irrevocably.

and rocks Heb. וכפים, the Aramaic translation of סלעים, rocks. (Another explanation:) in the crevice of the streams That is the crevice that the stream makes around itself.

המחנה האחת והכהו TO THE ONE CAMP AND SMITE IT — The word מחנה is treated grammatically as masculine or feminine: in (Psalms 27:3) “Though a camp should encamp (תחנה) against me” it is feminine; in (Genesis 33:8) “this (הזה) camp” it is masculine. Similarly there are other words treated grammatically as both masculine and feminine. For example, the word שמש in (Genesis 19:23) “The sun was risen (יצא) upon the earth” and in (Psalms 19:7) “His (the sun’s) going forth (מוצאו) is from the end of the heaven”; here it is masculine, but in (2 Kings 3:22) “and the sun shone (זרחה) upon the water” it is feminine. Similarly with רוח: in (Job 1:19) “and behold there came (באה) a great wind” it is feminine, and in the same verse “and smote (ויגע) the four corners of the house” it is masculine; in (1 Kings 19:11) “and a great (גדולה) and strong (וחזק) wind rent (מפרק) the mountains” it is both masculine and feminine. So also in the case of אש: in (Numbers 16:35) “and fire came forth (יצאה) from the Lord” it is feminine, and in (Psalms 104:4) “The flaming (להט) fire” it is masculine.