This sidra, the first in our book to be largely
composed of laws and religious precepts, begins with a passage dealing with a
subject of reward and punishment:
" See, I have set before you this day a
blessing and a curse"
A blessing, if ye obey the commandments
of the Lord your God, which I command you this day:
And a curse, if ye will not obey the
commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way which I command
you this day, to go after other Gods, which ye have not known. ( 11,
26-28 )
This passage which promises blessing to the obedient and threatens the
disobedient with a curse postulates, too, the fundamental Jewish principle of
freewill. The Midrash understands the opening words of our text as implying
this:
" Behold I have set . . . blessing and a
curse . . . " Said R. Eliezer: As soon as the Almighty uttered these words at
Sinai, "out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good" (
Lamentations 3,38 ); but evil overtakes those who commit evil and good those do
good.
Many commentators have been puzzled by
the fact that the Hebrew word for evil in the text from Lamentations occurs in
the plural from ( ra'ot-"evils") whereas the word for good (tovah) is in the
singular. Here is the explanation of the Ha'amek Davar:
The Almighty, in his abounding grace,
provides His creators with one single good prior of the deed, as an incentive
to good works. In view of this, only one good proceeds from the most High,
whereas retribution and sufferings do not proceed from Him, but overtake man in
direct relationship to his deeds his sinful acts.
We shall revert to the foregoing idea
later. Meanwhile we shall deal with another apparent anomaly, this time in the
opening text. The anomaly is only apparent in the Hebrew, since the English
translation does not reflect the discrepancy. The passage states: "… a
blessing, if (asher) ye obey … "; " a curse if (im) ye will not
obey". The usual reading would have been the conditional im in both
cases. A more faithful English rendering would be: "A blessing that ye obey … a
curse if ye will not obey". But what is the point of this variation?
Malbim the great nineteenth century Jewish commentator who made a study of
Biblical Hebrew semantics gives the following explanation:
" A blessing that ye obey ", implying
then that the very obedience to the Divine commandments constitutes the
blessing. Do not imagine that there is any this-worldly reward outside the good
deed itself. It is not like the case of the master who rewards his servant for
loyalty and punishes for disobedience, where the servant's due is dependent on
the master's whim and is not inherent in the action itself. The parallel is to
the doctor who assures his patient that he will be well, as long as he adheres
to the regimen he prescribes, and that otherwise he will die. The consequences
are here inherent in the deed itself.
The idea propounded by Malbim echoes the
rabbinic dictum that the reward of a mitzvah virtue is its own reward.
But this does not explain why the Torah changes its attitude in respect of
sinful deeds and uses the conditional im. Surely it is equally true to
state that sin brings its own punishment the reward of a transgression is
transgression! Bahya goes further than Malbim and explaines the different
implications of asher and im in our context:
Im is an expression of doubt which was therefore inappropriate in
connection with obedience to the Torah, but quite appropriate in the context of
punishment. The text therefore uses asher an expression of certainty
with reference to obedience
In other wards, man is merely confronted by two possibilities. He is
exhorted to prefer the first course
(cf.: Deut. 30,19: "I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose
life"). Since, however, these two alternatives are in our passage set forth in
subordinate clauses of condition and are followed by the main clauses, it is
the latter which should provide the clue to interpreting the variation in
phraseology. Rashi with his characteristic brevity illuminates the obscurity in
two Hebrew words:
"The blessing that ye obey" on account
of that.
What is the point of Rashi's comment? To understand it we must invoke
the Talmud which explains the
difference in implication between al menat "on account of that" and im
"if". Al menat implies retroactive force. "I shall pay you if you
perform a certain task" constitutes an obligation to pay when the work is
completed on performance. " I shall pay you on account of the work you
perform for me " implies a retroactive obligation to pay even before the
performance.
Let us now apply this distinction to rash's comment: "on account of" as
applied to the text: "The blessing that ye obey". The blessing is given to man
on account, even before he has proved himself deserving by obedience to the
Divine law. The world is founded on Divine grace. At the end of creation before
man came into being it is stated: "And God saw all that He had made and behold
it was very good". This bountiful world was granted to man for him to enjoy and
serve his Master on condition that he would be obedient to the wishes of its
creator, whereas the curse comes only afterwards, in the event of man's
subsequent disobedience. This is the reason for the divergence of phrasing. The
world is not originally evil and full of misfortune to be redeemed by man's own
good works. On the contrary: How manifold are thy works O Lord, all of them
hast thou made in wisdom" (Psalm 104, 24). All the ugliness and misfortune are
consequences of the evil committed by man:" and the curse if ye will not obey".
The same Psalm refers to this:" Let the sins be consumed out of the earth and
the wicked will be no more, bless thou the Lord O my soul". Once human evil has
been eradicated the pristine purity of divine creation will be restored when
everything was "made in wisdom" and the state of blessing comes back into its
own: "Bless the Lord, O my soul, Praise ye the Lord".
Now we may appreciate the observation of the Ha'amek Davar cited
at the beginning. "Out of the mouth of the Lord proceedeth not evil(s) and
good", since man himself is responsible for the evils. Good is in the singular
however, since there is one supreme good which proceeds from God and that is the good granted to mankind
beforehand, in anticipation of its obedience.
Questions for Further Study:
|
Compare the two verses (27, 28) that formed the subject of our
discussion and find further discrepancies in the correspondences between them
both. Can they all be explained in accordance with Rashi's comment we
cited here .
- Compare Rashi here: al menat with Rashi in Exodus 20,
6 oseh hesed what is the common idea underlying both?
Ibn Ezra comments on the first word in the sidra "See thou"
(re'eh) " the verse addresses each individual Jew". What difficulty did Ibn
Ezra find in the phrasing which
warranted his comment?