A.
אם בחקותי תלכו ואת מצותי תשמרו ועשיתם אתם: כו' ונתתי שלום בארץ ושכבתם ואין מחריד והשבתי חי' רעה מן הארץ וגו' (“If in My laws you will go, and My mitzvoth you will keep, and you will do them. And I shall grant peace in the land, and you will lie down and nothing will make you tremble; and I shall abate bad wild animals from the land....” XXVI, 3-6).
The midrash records the following dispute concerning our passage: רבי יהודה אמר עוקרן מן העולם, רבי שמעון אמר משביתן שלא יזיקו (“Rabbi Yehuda said, [G-d will] eradicate them from the world; Rabbi Shim’on said, [He will] pacify them so that will not cause damage;” תו"כ פרשתנו פ"ב סי' א').
The question at hand is: What actually is the nature of the dispute?
B.
We begin by noting a distinction which is made in the mishna: הזאב והארי והדוב והנמר והברדלס, הרי אלו מועדין. רבי אליעזר אומר, בזמן שהן בני תרבות אינן מועדין, והנחש מועד לעולם (“The wolf and the lion and the bear and the panther and the leopard are mu’âdin [“noxious, dangerous, liable to cause damage”]. Rabbi Eli’ezer says, When they are bnei tarbuth they are not mu’âdin, but the snake is always mu’âd;” ב"ק ט"ו:). Rashi explains the phrase bnei tarbuth to mean שגדלן אדם בביתו (“that a man has raised them in his household”), i.e. domesticated them.
Even though Rabbi Eli’ezer’s opinion is not halacha psuqa (עיי' רמב"ם הל' נזקי ממון פ"א ה"ו, שו"ע ח"מ סי' שפ"ט סע' ח'), it nonetheless demonstrates that there is a hava amina, a presumption, of a difference between the two classes of dangerous animals: The higher mammals are, at least in theory, domesticatable, whilst snakes are not.
With this in mind, we turn to our next Talmudic source, and find: מיום שחרב בית המקדש אף על פי שבטלו סנהדרין, ארבע מיתות לא בטלו.לא בטלו!? הא בטלו להו! אלא דין ארבע מיתות לא בטלו, מי שנתחייב סקילה או נופל מן הגג או חי' דורסתו, ומי שנתחייב שריפה או נופל בדליקה או נחש מכישו -- והארס שורפו (רש"י שם) (“From the day the [Second] Temple was destroyed, even though the Sanhedrin was abolished, the four death sentences were not abolished. Not abolished?! They were abolished! Rather, the judgment of the four death sentences was not abolished: One who is guilty of [a crime entailing] sqila (stoning) either falls from a roof, or a wild animal tramples him; one who is guilty of [a crime entailing] sreifa (burning) either falls into a fire or a snake bites him -- and the venom burns him; Rashi ad loc.; כתובות ל.).
In other words, when the earthly Sanhedrin was abolished, the jurisdiction for capital crimes passed to the truly Superior Heavenly Court, the Béyth Din shel Ma’âla, and the sentences are carried out though mitha bidei shamayim - death at the hands of heaven - whose earthly agents include wild animals. Sqila is equated to dying beneath the claws of a lion; sreifa to death by snake-bite.
With both of these in mind, we turn to yet a third place, where we learn: כל חייבי מיתות שנתערבו זה בזה, נידונין בקלה. הנסקלין בנשרפין, ר' שמעון אומר נידונין בסקילה, שהשריפה חמורה, והחכמים אומרים נידונין בשריפה שהסקילה חמורה (“All who were liable for [different] deaths and became confused one with another, are executed according to the lightest sentence. [If] those who were to get sqila were mixed with those who were to get sreifa, Rabbi Shim’on says they are executed by sqila, since sreifa is more severe, and the Chachamim say that they are executed by sreifa, since sqila is more severe;” סנהדרין ע"ט: במשנה).
C.
So where does this leave us?
Sqila, we have seen, is likened bidei shamayim to an attack by a mammalian predator, whilst sreifa is compared to a snake-bite. The Chachamim consider sqila more severe than sreifa, and Rabbi Shim’on the opposite. We may presume (since the gmara does not cite a third opinion in his name) that Rabbi Yehuda sides with the Chachamim.
For now, let us put this aside, and consider Ramban.
C.
Ramban also takes note of our midrash, explaining כי תהי' ארץ ישראל בעת קיום המצות כאשר הי' העולם מתחלתו קודם חטאו של אדם הראשון, אין חי' ורמש ממית האדם, כמו שאמרו, "אין ערוד ממית אלא חטא ממית" (“that Eretz Yisra’él would be at a time of mitzva observance as the world had been from the beginning, before the first man’s sin, [when] there is no man-killing animal, as Chazal say, ‘It is not the viper which kills, but the sin’ [ברכות ל"ג.]”).
This original, pristine state of nature, in which there was neither predator nor prey, is described in Genesis I, 31: ולכל חית הארץ ולכל עוף השמים ולכל רומש על הארץ אשר בו נפש חי' את כל ירק עשב לאכלה וגו' (“And to all the wild animals of the earth, and to all thr birds of the heavens and and to every crawling thing upon the earth in which there is a living nefesh [I have given] every green grass as food....”). The eventual return of this state, Ramban goes on, is also the subject of several prophetic revelations (cf., e.g., Isaiah XI, 7-8).
Ramban goes on to emphasize כי לא הי' הטרף בחיות הרעות רק מפני חטאו של אדם, כי נגזר עליו להיות טרף לשניהם והושם הטרף טבע להם גם לטרף זו את זו כידוע, כי בטרפם האדם פעם אחת הוסיפו להיות רעות יותר, וכן אמר הכתוב "וילמד לטרוף טרף אדם אכל" (“for predation became part of [the nature of] wild animals only because of the first man’s sin, for it was decreed that he would become prey for their teeth, and it was implanted in their nature also to prey on one another, as is known; for having preyed on man once they became progressively worse; and this is what Scripture says, ‘and it learnt to tear its prey; it ate man’ [Ezekiel XIX, 3]”).
But, he continues, this is a temporary condition, which will one day be altered: על כן אמר הכתוב על ימי הגואל היוצא מגזע ישי כי ישוב השלום בעולם ויחדל הטרף כאשר הי' בטבעם מתחלה (“Therefore Scripture has said concerning the days of the redeemer who will come from the line of Yishai that peace will return to the world and predation will cease, as had been their nature from the start”).
Now let us reconsider our midrash.
It seems to me that both Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Shim’on are striving to tell us how completely the phenomenon of dangerous animals will vanish from the earth: Not only the most severe sorts of wild animals will cease to be a problem, but also the less severe. For Rabbi Yehuda, the less severe is the snake; therefore, he says, G-d will eradicate them from the earth, עוקרן מן הארץ, since snakes cannot be tamed or domesticated. Rabbi Shim’on, for his part, feels that not only the more severe snake will be abated, but also the less severe wolves, bears, etc., and therefore G-d will pacify them, משביתן שלא יזיקו.
Hence, the dfifferences in their language.
D.
The most thought-provoking part of Ramban’s comment is his conclusion: והכוונה היתה בו על חזקי' שבקש הקב"ה לעשותו משיח ולא עלתה זכותם לכך והי' המעשה על המשיח העתיד לבא (“And the intent [of the passage in our parasha] was concerning [King] Chizqiyahu whom the Holy One Blessed is He sought to make Mashiach, but the merit of [that generation] was insufficient for this (עיי' סנהדרין צ"ד.), and the matter came to refer to the Mashiach who is destined to come”).
Once again, as in last week’s parasha, a tale of lost opportunity. But, Ramban has assured us, the opportunity need not remain lost. We can, indeed, create a paradise on earth in Eretz Yisra’él. The operative condition is that it will occur בעת קיום המצות, as he says, when mitzva observance is general amongst Klal Yisra’él.
A thought well worth our consideration as we count up to Shavu’oth and our rededication to the Torah and Its mitzvoth.
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