A.
Our parasha discusses the mitzva of tzëdaqa: כי יהי' בך אביון מאחד אחיך כו' כי פתח תפתח את ידך לו והעבט תעביטנו די מחסרו אשר יחסר לו: השמר לך פן יהי' דבר עם לבבך בליעל וגו' (“For there will be amongst you a poor man of one of your brothers... For open shall you open your hand to him and lend shall you lend him enough for his lack which is lacking him. Guard yourself lest there be anything in your heart unworthy [bëliyya‘al]....”; XV, 7-9).
The Talmud compares the word bëliyya‘al in our verse to the same word in יצאו אנשים בני בליעל כו' לאמר נלכה ונעבדה אלהים אחרים אשר לא ידעתם (“There will come forth bënei bëliyya‘al... to say. 'Let us go and serve other gods whom you have not known'”; XIII, 14) and concludes כל המעלים עיניו מן הצדקה כאלו עובד עבודת כוכבים (“Anyone who turns his eyes away from [an opportunity for] tzëdaqa, it as if he is worshipping idols”; כתובות ס"ח.).
One might well think that the warning of השמר לך might be applied to many mitzvoth in the Torah: Guard yourself lest you fail to wear tzitzith, for instance, or lest you wear sha‘atnéz. Yet, the Torah states it specifically here, in this connection. What is it about the mitzva of tzëdaqa that the Torah finds it necessary to issue this warning of השמר לך, “guard yourself”?
B.
The search for an answer begins elsewhere in the Talmud where we learn: רבי פתח אוצרות בשני בצורת, אמר יכנסו בעלי מקרא בעלי משנה בעלי גמרא בעלי הלכה בעלי הגדה אבל עמי הארץ לא יכנסו. דחק רבי יונתן בן עמרם ונכנס, אמר לו רבי פרנסני. אמר לו בני קרית? א"ל לאו. א"ל שנית? א"ל לאו. אם כן במה אפרנסך? א"ל פרנסני ככלב וכעורב. פרנסי'. בתר דנפק יתיב רבי וקא מצטער ואמר אוי לי שנתתי פתי לעם הארץ! אמר לפניו רבי שמעון בר רבי שמא יונתן בן עמרם תלמידך הוא שאינו רוצה ליהנות מכבוד תורה מימיו? בדקו ואשכח. אמר רבי יכנסו הכל (“Rebbi [Rabbi Yëhuda ha-Nassi’] opened the storehouses in years of scarcity; he said, 'Let those learned in Scripture, Mishna, Gëmara, halacha, or aggadëta enter, but the ignorant [‘ammei ha-aretz] should not enter.' Rabbi Yonathan ben ‘Amram knocked and entered and said to him, 'Rabbi, support me!' [Rebbi] said to him, 'My son, have you studied Scripture?' He said, 'No.' 'Have you studied the Oral Torah?' He said, 'No.' 'If so, by what [justification] should I support you?' [Rabbi Yonathan] said, 'Support me like a dog or a raven.' [Rebbi] supported him. [i.e., authorized that he be given food]. After he left, Rebbi sat and lamented, 'Woe is me that I have given my bread to an ‘am ha-aretz!' Rabbi Shim‘on ben Rebbi said before him, 'Perhaps Yonathan ben ‘Amram is your student, in that he does not wish to benefit from the honor of Torah during his lifetime?' They checked and found [that it was so]. Said Rebbi, 'Let everyone enter'”; בבא בתרא ח. וע"ע תוס' שם דה"מ ככלב).
To say the least, the above episode is in need of elucidation. How are we to explain Rebbi’s conduct? If there was indeed a famine in Eretz Yisra’él and Rebbi had the means to alleviate it, as the head of the Jewish community in the Holy Land (nassi’) it was surely incumbent upon him to do so, if only in light of the passage quoted from our parasha. We see no indication of any such test of scholarship in the verse as Rebbi evidently proposed.
Even if we accept the story as it appears to be told, the very fact that the Talmud calls Yonathan ben ‘Amram “Rabbi” obviously means that he was a talmid chacham eligible for help under Rebbi’s criteria. What was the point of his confrontation with Rebbi?
C.
There can be no question that Rabbi Yëhuda ha-Nassi’ was a tzaddiq gamur. Indeed, the Yërushalmi records that רבי הוה יתיב לי' בציפורין שבע עשרה שנין וקרא על גרמי' "ויחי יעקב בארץ מצרים שבע עשרה שנה", ויחי יהודה בציפורין שבע בשרה שנה. ומן גובעין עבד תלת עשרה שנין חשש בשניו. אמר רבי יוסי בי רבי בון כל אותן שלש עשרה שנה לא מתה חי' בארץ ישראל ולא הפילה עוברה בארץ ישראל (“Rebbi lived in Tzipporin [Sepphoris] for [his last] seventeen years, and would read out upon himself, ‘And Ya‘aqov lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years’ [Genesis XLVII, 28] – And Yëhuda lived in Tzipporin seventeen years, of which he spent thirteen years suffering in his teeth. Said Rabbi Yossi ben Rabbi Bun, 'All those thirteen years, no woman died in childbirth in Eretz Yisra’él or miscarried in Eretz Yisra’él”; כלאים פ"י ה"ג וע"ע בראשות רבה פל"ג סי' ג').
The Pënei Moshe explains that the point of the story is וקמ"ל חסידותו של רבי שאף שהי' לו יסורין אלו קבל באהבה וקרא על עצמו "ויחי יעקב" וגו' לומר שדומה לו כמו שהי' יעקב חי באלו השנים ובשלוה גדולה הי' (“that it tells us of Rebbi’s piety, that even though he had these sufferings, he accepted them with love and read out upon himself ‘And Ya‘aqov lived....’, to say that he was similar to him, just as Ya‘aqov lived in those years [of relative comfort in Egypt], and was in great ease and comfort”).
Someone at such an exalted level of tzidqiyuth and chasiduth would certainly fall into the select group characterized by the navi’ as אבירי לב הרחוקים מצדקה (“heroes of the heart, far from tzëdaqa”; Isaiah XLVI, 12), concerning whom Chazal comment: כל העולם כולו ניזונין בצדקה והם ניזונין בזרוע (“All [the rest of] the world are sustained by tzëdaqa, and they are sustained by their own merit”; ברכות י"ז: ועיי' מהרש"א שם דה"מ והם) and Rashi elucidates that the world is sustained בצדקתו של הקב"ה ולא בזכות שבידן (“by the tzëdaqa of the Holy One, blessed is He and not by the merit in their hands”), whilst the members of the prophet’s group are sustained בזכות שבידם ובצדיקים משתעי קרא וקרי להו רחוקים מצדקתו של הקב"ה (“through the merit in their hands; Scripture is referring to tzaddiqim, and calls them ‘far’ from the tzëdaqa of the Holy One, Blessed is He [because they have no need of it]”).
As a member of the select group of tzaddiqim, it seems to me, Rebbi felt it incumbent on himself to concentrate his relief efforts on those who seemed likely candidates, if not already actually members, of the same club, those people for whom תורתן אומנותן, כ"ק הרבנים, הדיינים, ראשי הישיבה וכו', the rabbinical functionaries, those learned people of whom he spoke. The rest of këlal Yisra’él, the ‘ammei ha-aretz, he was confident, would be taken care of through Ha-Shem’s tzë-daqa, either directly or indirectly, through the donations of their more fortunate fellows.
When Rabbi Yonathan ben ‘Amram presented himself as a candidate for aid and suggested that he was an ‘am ha-aretz, Rebbi, motivated by chesed and our mitzva, helped him. However, he saw in the fact that he had been “set up” to aid an ‘am ha-aretz evidence of Divine message that, perhaps, he was not really such a tzaddiq, the he had perhaps erred in his cheshbon ha-nefesh, his self-assessment, and perhaps some sin had slipped out unperceived.
His son, Rabbi Shim‘on, suggested that perhaps Yonathan ben ‘Amram was not what he seemed to be (as we have seen, the Talmud provides a clue by referring to him as Rabbi). Not that he lied to Rebbi, G-d forbid, but that he judged himself particularly harshly because he adhered to a principle dear to Rebbi’s heart, and did not wish to benefit in any way from his Torah learning in this world; it was in this sense that Rabbi Shim‘on called him Rebbi’s “student,” not that he had literally studied under his father (who would then, of course, have recognized him).
D.
We find this principle articulated in the Mishna, by another of Rebbi’s sons: רבן גמליאל בנו של רבי יהודה הנשיא אומר, יפה תלמוד תורה עם דרך ארץ כו' וכל תורה שאין עמה צלאכה סופה בטילה וגוררת עון (“Rabban Gamli’él son of Rabbi Yëhuda ha-Nassi’ says, 'Torah learning is beautiful together with a worldly occupation... and any Torah which is not accompanied by a trade will in the end be nullified and occasions sin'”; אבות פ"ב מ"ב).
Rebbi clearly recognized the need the need for religious functionaries and leaders; he was, after all, the nassi’, the head of the Jewish community which clung to the Galil in the aftermath of the Bar Kochva revolt, and was succeeded in that post by his son Rabban Gamli’él. Within that community, the towns and villages had need of rabbanim, of dayyanim to serve on battei dinim, and those positions were of course fed by the three great yëshivoth located in Tzipporin, Tëverya (Tiberias) and Qesarya (Caesarea) There is, in other words, a clear necessity for הלומד על מנת ללמד, “one who learns in order to teach” (שם פ"ג מ"ו).
Beyond those, though, also members of the Jewish community were the farmers, shepherds, ba‘alei mël’acha of all sorts, and many of them, too, were bënei Torah, learned in their own right, true talmidei chacahmim. These men had as their ideal the determination to avoid, in any sense, making the Torah either עטרה להתגדל בה ולא קרדום לחפור בה (“a crown with which to magnify oneself or a shovel with which to dig”; שם מ"ז).
Rabbi Yonathan ben ‘Amram plainly belonged to this latter group. Duly reminded by Rabbi Yonathan’s example that such bënei Torah also exist in Këlal Yisra’él, Rebbi prudently opened the otzaroth to everyone.
No comments:
Post a Comment