A.
בנים אתם לד' אלקיכם לא תתגדדו ולא תשימו קרחה בין עיניכם למת: כי עם קדוש אתה לד' אלקיך וגו' (“You are sons of Ha-Shem your G-d; you shall not gash yourselves or put a bald strip between your eyes for the dead. For you are a holy people of Ha-Shem your G-d...." XIV, 1-2).
Rashi explains our verse: לא תתנו גדידה ושרט בבשרכם על מת כדרך שהאמוריים עושין לפי שאתם בנים של מקום ואתם ראויין להיות נאים ולא גדודים ומקורחים (“Do not make a gash or scratch in your flesh vecause of the dead in the way that the Emoriyyim do, because you are sons of G-d and you are fit to be comely, and not gashed or made bald”).
This, it would seem, is the plain meaning of our verse, and the Talmud connects it to what the Torah prescribes for the kohanim in Leviticus XXI, 5-6: לא יקרחה קרחה בראשם ופאת זקנם לא יגלחו ובבשרם לא ישרטו שרטת: קדשים יהיו לאלקיהם וגו' (“They shall not make a bald spot on their heads and the corners of their beards they shall not shave, and in their flesh they shall not scratch a scratch. Holy shall they be to their G-d....” קדושין ל"ו., מכות כ'.), which, the Sifrei points out, was in fact the practise of the priests of Ba’al (cf. I Kings XVIII, 28).
Ramban notes Rashi’s comment and questions it sharply: ואיננו נכון, שאם כן תהי' המצוה גם לא על המת (“It is not correct, for if so, the mitzva would apply even not because of the dead”). In other words, if the real reason for the mitzva is, as Rashi states, that we are “sons of G-d” and therefore fit to look nice, then why does the verse prohibit self-mutilation specifically over someone who has died? Indeed, if the custom is prohibited to all of Israel “because [we] are sons of G-d,” why does it have to be separately prohibited to the kohanim?
B.
After asking his question, Ramban goes on to quote the Even Êzra: שתדעו שאתם בנים לשם והוא אוהב אתכם יותר מהאב לכן אל תתגודדו על כל מה שיעשה כי כל אשר יעשה לטוב הוא ואם לא תבינוהו כאשר לא יבינו הבנים הקטנים מעשה אביהם רק יסמכו עליו כן תעשו גם אתם כי עם קדוש אתה ואינך כשאר כל הגויים על כן לא תעשה כמעשיהם (“For you should know that you are sons of Ha-Shem and He loves you more than a father; therefore, do not gash yourselves over anything which He does, for everything which He does is for good, and if you do not understand Him, just as small children do not understand what their father is doing, yet still rely on him, so, too, should you do, for you are a holy people and not like all the rest of the nations; therefore, don’t do as they do”).
Adds Ramban: ולפי דעתי "עם קדוש" הבטחה בקיום הנשמות לפניו ית' ואמר אחרי שאתם עם קדוש וסגולת ד' ולא ישא אליהם נפש וחשב מחשבות לבלתי ידח ממנו נדח אין ראוי להם להתגודד ולהקרח ואפי' ימות בנוער כו' ומכאן סמך לרבותינו באסרם להתאבל יותר מדאי (“And in my opinion, ‘holy people’ constitutes a promise concerning the preservation of souls before Him, may He be blessed, and He said, 'Since you are a holy people and a treasure of Ha-Shem’s, such that He would not grant them a nefesh amidst thoughts of casting it away from Him, it is not proper for them to gash themselves or be rendered bald, even if [the deceased] dies young....' And from here [we have] support for the Rabbis’ prohibition of excessive mourning”).
The death of a loved one is naturally the occasion for the wildest emotions; mourners often irrationally blame themselves, try to hurt themselves, to hurl themselves into the grave so as not to be permanently parted from the deceased parent, spouse, sibling, or (G-d forbid) child. It is this, apparently, which underlies the Emori custom of gashing or scratching oneself over the dead (as is indeed still the mourning custom amongst some primitive peoples in our day). For Israel, such displays are neither justified nor seemly, for in our case the parting is not permanent. A measure of sadness is in order, to be sure, just as it would be were the loved one to be emigrating to a far-off land; but since we are בנים לד', Ha-Shem’s sons, we are assured of an eventual “family reunion."
But there are deeper implications worthy of some exploration.
C.
The holy Zohar juxtaposes our verse to Genesis IX, 6: בצלם אלקים עשה את האדם (“in the image of G-d [tzelem Eloqim] did He make the adam”), and draws the conclusion: ואילין אינון בצלם אלקים ואילין ירתין ירותא עלאה כגוונא דילי' ועל דא אזהר באורייתא "לא תתגודדו" וכו' דהא לא אתאביד והא שכיח בעולמין טבין עלאין ויקירין להוון חדן כד אסתלק צדיקא מהאי עלמא (“and these [Israel] are in the image of G-d, and they inherit a supernal legacy which is of Him, and therefore He warned in the Torah ‘do not gash yourselves,’ etc., for [an individual Jew who dies] is not lost, and finds himself in good, supernal, precious worlds, such that one ought to rejoice when a tzaddiq leaves this world;” ח"ג קנ"ט:).
This is a central theme in Torah thought; the Talmud, for its part, informs us: אתם קרויים אדם ואין העובדי כוכבים קרויים אדם (“You [Israel] are called adam and the idolators are not called adam;” יבמות ס"א.), and the Maharal mi-Prag returns to it over and over again in his writings; for instance:
ישראל הם מציאות אמיתי שהרי הם עלולים מן השם יתברך ונקראים בשביל כך בנים למקום שהם נמצאים מאתו בעצם ובראשונה (“Israel are a true actuality, for they were brought about from Ha-Shem, and are called on that account “sons of G-d,” for they are in existence from Him in essence and from the beginning;” גור ארי' על פסוקנו). And: ישראל נקראים בנים בשביל שהם עלולים מאמיתתו יתברך, ודבר זה גורם החבור והדביקות לגמרי (“Israel are called ‘sons’ because they came about from His truthfulness, may He be blessed, and this is what causes [their] connectedness [chibbur] and total adherence [dveiquth]”; נצח ישראל פי"ב). And: ישראל המה נבראו מן השם יתברך בעצם, לא כמו שאר נמצאים שאין נבראים מן השם יתברך בעצם רק שהם נבראים לשמש אחרים, לכן לא נקראים בשם בנים כו' רק ישראל שבריאתם לא לשמש זולתם (“Israel were created from Ha-Shem in essence, not like the rest of existing things which were not created from Ha-Shem in essence; rather, they were created to serve others, and therefore are not called by the term ‘sons...,’ only Israel, whose creation was not to serve any others;” באר הגולה, באר שלישי), multa inter alia.
All this is very heady stuff. Israel would seem to be a race of Übermenschen, of Jewish supermen. Yet, the Torah is very careful to delineate Israel’s genetic heritage, descended from Shem, son of Noach. Others, too, are descendants of Shem, and, of course, all mankind are ultimately descended from Noach, meaning that they share the same genetic heritage as Israel. What is more, if Israel have this essential, qualitative difference over everyone else, how is giyyur, “conversion,” from one of the nations to Israel possible?
D.
We can begin to clarify this with a mishna (אבות פ"ג מי"ד). The mishna opens by juxtaposing Genesis IX, 6 and our verse in a fashion similar to the Zohar cited supra, then continues: חביבין ישראל שנתן להם כלי חמדה. חבה יתירה נודעת להם שנתן להם כלי חמדה שבו נברא העולם, שנאמר "כי לקח טוב נתתי לכם תורתי אל תעזבו" (“Favored are Israel because [G-d] gave them a precious instrument. Special affection is known to them because He gave them the precious instrument with which the world was created, as it is said: ‘For I have given you a good portion, My Torah; do not abandon [it]’ [Proverbs IV, 2]”). Indeed, the Zohar, a bit before the passage cited supra, itself asserts: בכל מאן דאיהו דחיל חטאת איקרי אדם אמיתי. א"ר אלעזר דאית בי' יראה, ענוה, חסידות כללא כולא (“Everyone who fears sin is called a true adam; said Rabbi El’azar, For he has in him fear and humility; piety summarizes it all;” ח"ג קמ:ה:).
The above can be reconciled with all the foregoing by first remembering the Talmud’s assessment that the human body contains 248 “limbs” (évarim) and 365 “sinews” (gidim; מכות כ"ג:). Presumably, so does the body of an ape. What differentiates an adam, the tzelem Eloqim, from an ape is the addition of the neshama, the metaphysical, spiritual component whose structure is exactly parallelled by the body, such that each éver and each gid has its metaphysical counterpart. This is the tzelem Eloqim (עיי' בית חכמה לשל"ה הקדוש).
As any physical therapist will tell you, lack of exercise leads to physical atrophy; when I was hospitalized, I was told that it begins to set in within the first 48 hours that one is bedridden. The same is true of the neshama, however the atrophy begins to set in immediately.
Chazal, in the Talmud, op. cit., do the arithmetic, and note that the number of évarim and gidim, not coincidentally, equals the number of mitzvoth in the Torah, 613. "Favored are Israel," for G-d has given them the “exercise manual” by which they can maintain and strengthen the chibbur and dveiquth to Ha-Shem which confers on them the right to be called an adam and G-d’s “sons.” It is the Torah which frees them from the “service of others,” as the baraitha tells us, שאין לך בן חורין אלא מי שעוסק בתלמוד תורה (“For no-one is free save one who is occupied in Torah-study;” אבות פ"ו ה"ב).
Through the Torah, the Maharal notes, we are engaged in the service of the uniquely, utterly unitary G-d, a union such that din (“judgment”) and rachamim (“mercy”) are indivisible and indistinguishable from one another. The nations, on the other hand, turn Divinity into “divinities;” they serve “others.” They see din as isolated from rachamim, and there seems no plainer expression of din than death. Hence the Torah’s emphasis on invalidating “gashing,” and so on in connection with the dead, and with Divine service (גור ארי' שם, וע"ע נפש החיים ש"א פ"ד, פירוש ובחרת בחיים שם ובמלואים בענין חבור הנשמות לעולמות העליונים, שהוא נעשה אך ורק דרך לשון הקדש, ושחבור זה נפסק מן הגויים ע"י בלבול הלשונות במגדל בבל).
Any member of the nations wishing to be free of the service of “others” and wishing to (re-)establish the chibbur and dveiquth which will create an adam amithi, a true adam rather than the mere physical shadow of one, has the path of giyyur open to him.
For G-d is One, and din and rachamim are not, in the end, separable.
No comments:
Post a Comment