A.
Our parasha tells us that in the event a miscreant is caught and convicted of violating certain of the Torah’s prohibitions: והפילו השופט והכהו לפניו כדי רשעתו במספר: ארבעים יכנו ולא יוסיף פן יוסיף להכותו על אלה מכה רבה ונקלה אחיך בעיניך: לא תחסם שור בדישו: (“...And the judge will make him lie down, and have him beaten according to his wickedness by number. Forty [times] he will have him struck, and he will not add, lest by continuing to beat him above these [forty] a great beating, your brother will be lessened in your eyes. Do not muzzle an ox when he is treading [grain]”; XXV, 2-4).
That the last verse in the passage is intended to be read together with the rest is clearly indicated by the spacing of the verses in the séfer Torah. That it is not some strange, stream-of-consciousness occurrence, G-d forbid, is indicated in the Talmud, which elucidates the Divine logic: It is included here to provide an instance of the sort of transgression which merits the penalty of mal-quth under discussion, the technical term for which is a לאו שלא נתק לעשה, a “prohibition which cannot be transformed into a command”; רש"י ע"פ מכות י"ג:).
Our passage asserts that 40 lashes is the maximum penalty a judge can impose in such a case, בל יוסיף, “lest he add to it.” However, it is well known that the actual number of lashes which the Talmud concludes can be administered in such a case is 39 (שם כ"ב.). The Torah contains not only a general admonition not to add to its provisions, but also a prohibition of בל תגרע, “do not subtract” (cf., e.g., Deuteronomy XIII, 1). Since the written Torah explicitly says 40, how could Chazal decrease the number?
B.
Begin by asking another question: Why does the Torah specify 40?
The Maharal mi-Prag explains that the number is כנגד ארבעים יום של יצירת הולד וביום האחרון הוא יום הארבעים מקבל הולד הנשמה, ובכל ל"ט הוא בריאות הגוף ובגוף הוא החטא שבו היצר הרע (“Apposite the forty days during which the fetus is formed, and on the last day, that is, the 40th day, the fetus receives the nëshama, and in all of [the preceding] 39 days is the formation of the body, and it is in the body that the sin resides, for in it is the yétzer ha-ra‘....” גור ארי' לפרשתנו כ"ה ב').
Elsewhere, the Maharal elaborates on this theme: והחטא שהאדם חוטא בא לאדם מצד החומר בלבד כי מצד הצורה אין חטא כלל, ואלמלא לא הי' החומר הי' האדם קדוש וטהור מן החטא רק כי ההעדר דבר בחומר כו' וכאשר האדם הוא בחטא גם הצורה שלו עומד בחומר בחטא , ולכך אמר "ארבעים יכנו" כו' רצה לומר יצירה זאת שנבראת בארבעים יצירה רעה כך היא, לכך יש להכותו לפי מספר היצירה שהיא רעה, וכאשר הוא בחטא אז משפט ארבעים מכות יש עליו כנגד יצירת החומר עם צורתו אשר חלה ביום ארבעים , אבל כאשר הוא מכה אותו ל"ט וקבל העונש שהוא מצד החומר אזי אין בצורה חטא ושב להיות טהור (“And the sin which an adam commits comes to the adam from the material component [chomer] alone, for from the tzura [the “shape” or “form” given the person by the spiritual infusion at the end of the forty days] there is no sin at all, and were it not for the chomer the adam would be holy and pure of sin; it is only that the failing is in the chomer.... And when the adam is [mired] in sin, his tzura, standing in the chomer, is also in sin, and therefore He has said ‘40 [times the judge] will have him struck’.... i.e., this yëtzira [‘formation’] which came into existence in 40 [days] as a yëtzira ra‘a is such that he should be struck according to the number of the yëtzira which is ra‘, and when he is in sin, then a judgment of 40 blows is upon him, apposite the formation of the chomer with its tzura, which takes effect on the 40th day, but when [the judge] has him struck 39 times and he has accepted the punishment which the chomer has incurred, then there is no sin in the tzura and he goes back to being pure....”; באר הגולה, באר ראשון).
Chazal tell us that within the first 40 days after conception, the human fetus becomes sufficiently developed that it can serve as an “envelope” for the lowest portion of the complex spiritual entity which makes us human, the nëshama. This lowest part, the nefesh, then takes over and guides the rest of the child’s physical development. Its infusion completes and terminates the early phase of fetal development called yëtzira and inaugurates the next phase, ‘asiya (עיי' בכורות כ"א. ונדרים ל. וע"ע ספר לשם שבו ואחלמה ח"א ש"ב פ"א'-ב').
It is the nëshama which constitutes the tzurath ha-adam to which the Maharal alludes above.
The Maharal points out that it is the chomer, the material component which is notzar, formed, by the process of yëtzira which constitutes the yétzer ha-ra‘. As has been noted several times in these pages, the root meaning of the word ra‘ refers to physical entropy, the tendency of all matter to wear out, be used up, decline into decay and disorder. This tendency is inherent in the material world, whence it is characterized as the yétzer ha-ra‘; in the case of human beings, it is the source of the urgings and consequent activities we conceive to be “bad” (the general meaning of ra‘).
The higher portion of this complex spiritual entity, which lends its name, nëshama, to the whole, has as its function the directing and channeling of the proclivities of the chomer, through the nefesh. Sin, in particular that category designated by the technical term chét’,occurs when the nëshama allows itself to become distracted or otherwise temporarily abdicates its oversight responsibilities, and the chomer acts inappropriately.
Hence, the Maharal explains, punishment of the chomer, accepted and internalized, is sufficient to expiate the sin. The tzura came to be soiled by virtue of its contact with the chomer; agitating the chomer, as it were, removes the stain and leaves the tzura unblemished again. For this reason, the full 40 makkoth, however richly deserved at the time of conviction, are not, in fact, necessary.
Herein we have the sëvara, the logical theory behind the reduction; but since the Torah specifies the actual number 40, what did Chazal see that permitted them to follow their sëvara and reduce the number to 39?
C.
The Maharal calls the fact that the actual 40th blow is unnecessary חכמה עליונה מופלאה והכתוב מוכח כך בפירוש, שהכתוב הפסיק בין "במספר" ובין "ארבעים" שאם הי' מחובר "במספר" אל "ארבעים" הייתי אומר שכאשר הוא סופר אחד אחד כאשר מלקין אותו יכה אותו ארבעים, ולכך מחלק מלת "במספר" מן "ארבעים" ואמר "ארבעים יכנו" כלומר שיש עליו עונש ארבעים יכנו, אבל כאשר מכה אותו וסופר אחד אחד אין המכות אלא ל"ט (“supernal, wonderful wisdom, and Scripture proves it explicitly, for Scripture separates bë-mispar [‘by number’] from arba‘im ['forty'], for had bë-mispar been connected to arba‘im, I would say that when [the judge] counts one by one as [the convict] is being flogged, he has him struck 40 times. For this reason [G-d] separates the word bë-mispar from arba‘im but says ‘40 times shall he have him struck’ to indicate that he deserves 40, but when he has him struck and counts one by one, the blows total only 39”; באר הגולה שם).
As Rashi also points out, idiomatic Hebrew requires that the final word in verse 2 should read ba-mispar, with the definite prefix; the lack of the prefix (the vowel “a”) indicates that the word is in sëmichuth, in construct with the next word, “forty,” and so should be read “forty in number.” But it does not so read; a sof pasuq intervenes, and the actual effect is as if the sentence ends “in the number of.” From this Chazal deduce a small measure of Divine clemency.
D.
But since the vowels are not indicated in the séfer Torah, or the divisions between the verses, we only know that they are to be read in this way, says the Maharal, כי להם בפרט הי' מקובל בידם חכמה אלקית, מפי אדון כל הנביאים, כמו שאמרו "משה קבל תורה מסיני ומסרה וכו'" היו מקבלים החכמה האלקית זה מזה דור אחר דור עד דורות האחרונים (“because [Chazal] had received in their hands Divine wisdom from the mouth of the lord of all the prophets [Moshe], as they said, ‘Moshe received the Torah from Sinai and transmitted it....’ [אבות פ"א מ"א], they received the Divine wisdom one from the other, generation after generation until the last generations”; באר הגולה שם).
Moshe taught us how to read the words, and where to divide the sentences, from his day to ours.
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