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Parashat Mishpatim
Without Intermediaries
According to Or HaHaim’s Human Methodology
Translated
from Hebrew by S. NAthan
l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai
“Behold I shall send an angel messenger before you, to
guard you on the road, and to bring you to the place, etc.” “‘Beware
in his presence, and listen to his voice. Do not rebel against him
for he will not bear your sin.’ He is not trained in this, for he is
of the sect that never sins. ‘Because My Name is within him:’
‘Beware in his presence’ because My Name is joined within him.” (Rashi)
Who is this angel messenger? “Many have bungled in
this. Some say the angel messenger is the sefer Torah,
‘because My Name is within it.’ Others said it is the Ark of the
Covenant. And the meaning of ‘listen to his voice’...refers to that
it will not bear your sin.”
“And all of these are wind words...for it is rather
Micha’el, your ruling angel, for he is the great one...and this same angel
messenger is Micha’el.” (Ibn Ezra)
Ramban: “Yet one must ask: After all, this decree was
never fulfilled, for the Holy One said to him, ‘I will send before you an
angel messenger, for I will not go up in your midst.’”
“And Moshe begged for mercy over this, and said: ‘If Your
Presence will not go, do not take us out of here,’...and God consented to
him.”
“And the answer according to this opinion would be that
this decree was not fulfilled during Moshe’s lifetime,...but after the
death of Moshe Rabeinu, He did send an angel messenger.”
“This is what is meant in the text: ‘And it was while
Yehoshua was in Yeriho that he lifted his eyes and saw and behold a man
was standing opposite him, and his sword was drawn in his hand, and he
said to him: ‘Are you with us or with our enemies?’”
“And by way of interpretation according to the truth, this
angel messenger that they were promised herein is the malach hago’el,
the redeeming angel – the one who has the Great Name within him.”
Or HaHaim: “The meaning of this angel messenger is that
it is the redeeming angel of the avot. [Who it will be recalled
were God’s servants on the path of
free choice, the path of itaruta dil’tata – where
the lower one awakens and reaches toward God]. He was not just one
of the serving angels among all the other serving angels. Rather
he was a great angel, as is known to the learned, because we do not
recognize any intermediate angel. but rather only Him, be He blessed,
and shechinat uzo, the immanent presence of His great might,
which unites with Him, in the mystery of ‘God is one and His Name is
one...’”
“‘Do not rebel against him:’
This
alludes to man’s action, when it creates an effect of substitution – of
good instead of evil, of ‘a slave that rules’ and ‘a slave woman
that inherits her mistress.’ For this He will truly extract
vengeance and revenge, from the one who does substitution, ‘for he will
not bear your sin.’”
“Also this messenger angel – it is known that he is like
the tribunal...and when it says ‘for My Name is within him’ – learn
wisely this thing – it means that by means of man’s sin, an effect is
caused of the departure of the Sovereign within him... And they
have said (of blessed memory) that ‘his name is as his Master’s Name,
and it is Sha-dai,’ because his own self is worth the very amount of the
Name, and through human sin, the Name of Sha-dai removes itself from
him...”
“And the heart of one who is wise in these things has
wisely understood that ‘if you shall surely listen to his voice’ refers
to one’s fellow human being...”
“‘And Moshe took half of the blood:’ Who divided it? An
angel messenger came and divided it.” (Rashi 24:6) “And from
here our masters learned that our avot entered the covenant through
circumcision and immersion and sprinkling of blood.” (Rashi)
“And he took the book of the covenant and he read in the
ears of the people, and they said: ‘What God has said, we will do, and we
will obey.’ We will do for the sake of obeying Him, as slaves that
serve their master not for the sake of receiving a prize.” (Sforno)
A Relationship of Reciprocity
We have already discussed the issue of reciprocity in
Parashat Yitro. It is a concept that one does not find in any
other religion. It is rather audacious to place Creator and created
on the same foundation from which to form their relationship. This
foundation – of a covenant between equals – is not meant solely as a
testimony to the Holy One’s humility, but rather is meant to point out the
goal of His humility, which is in order to join man to Himself,
cooperatively sharing responsibility for the creation on an equal basis.
Responsibility is shared in an equal manner between man’s
initiative of free choice and his expectations of response from the Divine
hashgaha: If he does not receive a response, let him know that the
blame lies in a flaw in his initiative of free choice. Let him not
cast the blame onto the other side, but rather let him see within his own
self the cause for the slackening of the tie between him and his
Possessor.
This covenant is based upon absolute equality, with strict
adherence to absolute accuracy, to the extent that an angel was needed in
order to divide the blood in half into two containers that would each hold
absolutely equal parts. This is an equality that is unconditional,
that recognizes no excuses, justified, or unjustified as they may be.
In a reciprocal relationship, there is no ruler and ruled,
no judge handing down his arbitrary verdict. Rather both of them,
the judge and the judged, are on the same side. Thus the one who is
found guilty must view the judge as having assisted in saving him from the
sin of robbery, from the sin of acquiring wealth that is not his.
Therefore, “we will do and we will obey.” We will do
whatever we understand, and we will obey and accept the part that is
difficult to accept: Total commitment by both sides. In the
agreement that was signed between the partners to the covenant, there was
at no point a commitment to half the total but rather to all of it in its
entirety.
The Ramban interprets the law regarding partners who
borrowed money along the same lines: The lender can extract the entire sum
from either one of the partners because each of them has committed himself
to the entire sum. Each can be relied on to make the effort to
demand his half back from his partner, which he initially paid out because
of his status as guarantor.
Mikan mooda’a raba l’oraita:
This is the great rule upon which all relations between God’s servant and
his Creator are built. This rule is not given the attention it
deserves: The partnership in covenant with the Creator opens up a new
power for man, a status shared with God: The one who fulfills his
partnership, who expresses his status as partner and guarantor – becomes
Godly, becomes a Godly presence on earth, with all that this implies. He
becomes capable of diverging from and rising above the limitations of
matter, space, and time, to become “an angel for a few moments” as
expressed in the pure-gold writing of the Hazon Ish.
Above the angels. “A great angel.” An unheard
of audacity is implied in the phraseology of the Or HaHaim HaKadosh.
Indeed, the vast range of interpretation regarding the angel messenger
that is promised them, who will guide them on their road to the promised
land – this wide range and variety of perspectives fairly opens the door
to audacious interpretations.
Ibn Ezra brings – and then apparently rejects – the
possibility that the angel messenger is nothing other than the sefer Torah
or the Ark of the Covenant. “And all of these are wind words.”
This rejection is not sharp enough to indicate that these words do not
deserve to be heard, that they are incompatible with true hashkafa,
or that they are even mere nonsense. Rather, they are brought – and
not affirmed, yet not refuted.
From Or HaHaim’s interpretive words, it seems that the
messenger angel is man himself, as the partner in the sacred covenant.
He fills both roles: Subject and object. He is the receiver and he
is the giver.
Or HaHaim’s very precision is what opens up this
possibility to interpretation: “The angel messenger that redeems the
avot.” There is a hint here to a problem in hashkafa – a
problem to which Judaism is highly sensitive: The issue of using an
intermediary. “For we do not recognize an intermediate angel, but
rather only Him, be He blessed, and the immanent presence of His great
might, which unites with Him, in the mystery of ‘God is one and His Name
is one.’”
Then what is the nature of this angel if not to fulfill the
role of intermediary? Or HaHaim HaKadosh hints at a human
perspective on the Creator’s presence in the world: The shechina –
the Creator’s female aspect, but not as an entity separate from the
Creator – enters the world, and relates to man as God related to the
avot, through Kel Sha-dai. This is God’s approach to man
when man approaches God through the initiative of free choice. It is
God’s approach to the human being who serves Him, who cleaves to his God.
This approach characterized the avot. It was changed to a
large extent, during the generations of Egypt.
“‘Do not rebel against him:’ This alludes to man’s
action, when it creates an effect of substitution – of good for
evil, of ‘a slave that rules’ and ‘a slave woman that inherits her
mistress,’ and for this He will truly extract vengeance and revenge from
the one who does substitution.”
The Or HaHaim’s substitution seems to be referring to man’s
power as a partner who holds equal rights: By the power of his partnership
he gains Godly power. He becomes capable of putting his stamp on
creation, inside the cycle of his own existence, whether this is narrow or
broad. His level of power increases with his level of wholeness as
God’s servant, and mainly, with his ability to make distinctions and
exercise control in the moral/human sphere of good and evil. This is
the sphere of man’s control; here “substitution” is given to his mastery:
“As a slave that rules and as a slave woman that inherits
her mistress.” Man is the causal factor. He is both influencer
and influenced. “Also this angel – it is known that he is like a
tribunal.” He is both judge and judged. This profound concept
is alluded to in “the bal habayit will be brought near the
judges/God,” and in “My children have triumphed over Me.” This
status is only possible for a human being “because My Name is within him,”
because the power of God is in him, in his own behavior.
“By means of man’s sin,” through man’s power, “an effect is
caused of the departure of the Sovereign within him...” man runs the risk
of influencing the other member of the covenant, “and...‘his name is as
his Master’s Name, and it is Sha-dai’...and through human sin, the Name of
Sha-dai removes itself from him.” From whom? From man himself!
This astounding and revolutionary principle holds the
answer to many perplexing questions. For example: Immediately
after the covenant had been sealed, through haza’at hadam, we read
that Moshe – together with Aharon, Nadav, Avihu, and the seventy elders,
rose up “and saw the God of Israel.” This issue is very difficult to
reconcile, and the mefarshim labor over it.
Only by the power of the covenant was this terrible vision
made possible. After all, “man cannot see Me and live.”
However, man who raises himself up by the power of his partnership in the
covenant may view the other Partner from his own side of the covenant,
though he may not view the other Partner from the other Partner’s side.
That is, he may view the partnership, but not the Partner.
From this perspective we may understand Or HaHaim’s
symbolic treatment of eved ivri and ama
ivria:
“‘If his master shall give him a wife.’ All of this
parasha follows a hidden path: If his true Master – ‘for b’nei
Yisrael are slaves to Me’ – shall give him a wife...for he is nothing but
a slave to the soul, for it is only for her that he is called a man...and
the reference is to the soul that the Creator has given him...Here the
Torah has hinted at a great mystery, and it is: There can be a man
who has acquired his own soul by the power of his good deeds, and he
becomes the owner (ba’al – husband) of a sacred soul...”
The Torah imperative “anshei kodesh tihyu li
– people of the sacred will you be to Me” means that man is required to
cross over to his Godly side, to the sacred that is within himself, if he
would desire to be a partner in the covenant.
Similarly: “He shall bless your bread and your water, and I
will remove disease from your midst.” In what way does this promise
of health differ from the previous promise? Previously God said: “If you
shall truly listen...all the disease that I placed in Egypt I shall not
place upon you, for I am God your healer.” Here the mefarshim
explain that “He shall bless your bread and your water” means “the food
will be blessed inside one’s digestive system.” According to this
explanation, the difference between this promise and the previous one
becomes clear:
In the previous promise, man will be blessed by the direct
intervention and hashgaha of the Creator. Man will be freed
of dependency upon the ways of nature and will be healed by way of
miracle. In contrast, in our parasha the Torah means that God
will bless the connection between nature and man, “that the food will be
blessed in his digestive system.” This means any food, as paltry as
it may be. Man will not be forced to go in search of high-quality
expensive food necessarily. By the power of his reciprocal
partnership with his Creator, he will not be dependent upon or lead by the
forces of nature, yet he will also not be required to detach himself from
nature. Rather he will relate to nature, and will rule it, as the
master rules his eved nirtsa. Man determines his own
relationship to nature, and he extracts from it whatever he requires in
order to fulfill his needs and to maintain his body’s health.
This synopsis fits well with all the commandments we find
throughout the parasha. The halachot regulating ben
adam lahavero, interpersonal relations, are a direct continuation of
the first section with its highly-detailed laws: Once man has been blessed
and privileged to participate in a covenant with his God, it is proper
that he view also his fellow human being as a partner to the covenant.
His fellow may no longer be perceived as a competitor in the cruel,
brute-force war for survival. He cannot cast the responsibility upon
his fellow, he cannot blame his fellow, he cannot succumb to the survival
mechanism, or to his own tendency to attribute success to himself and to
cast blame for failure on others. Rather he must judge himself just
as he judges his fellow, on the basis of reciprocity.
Neither should he go to the opposite extreme of masochistic
self-flagellation, in which he gives all credit to his fellow, and all
blame to himself. Rather he must see himself and his fellow through
the reciprocity of full partnership, sharing all in equal parts, in
successes and in failures, as is fitting and proper to those who share a
covenant of truth. When he will view his fellow in this light, he
will call an end to hatred and to envy, and bring instead shalom al
Yisrael – peace upon Israel.
This may explain the Gemara’s statement (Shavuot 9) that
the sacrificial goats of Rosh Hodesh, the New Moon, were meant to serve
the Creator in order to appease the moon, for having been demoted from her
greatness. Of this, the BaH comments, “this is a mystery.”
Hu sod. For after all, what need does the Holy One have for
sacrifices? And why and wherefore would He be required to appease
the moon?
According to the Or HaHaim’s methodology we can catch a
glimmer of insight into this highly nistar issue: Man has the
power to appease the moon by the power invested in him by the covenant of
reciprocity. In this way, he contributes to the equilibrium of the
creation – an equilibrium that was previously upset by the moon’s
deprivation. Therefore we make specific mention of this damaged
equilibrium, in birkat hal’vana: “Let it be God’s will...to fill
the flaw of the moon, and she should have no diminishing, and let the
light of the moon be as the light of the sun...as it was before her
diminishing.”
“And of the moon He said that she should be renewed, as a
glorious crown to [Israel] whose bellies are loaded [with sorrow] for they
will in future be renewed as she will.”
“How wondrous is this great vision,” for it is “the vision
of Sha-dai:” It is the vision of man’s intervention in the processes of
creation, of man’s belonging and contributing to the act of creation, and
this contribution is not limited only to what transpires here on earth.
It soars to the highest heights, and it is ultimately reciprocated: “For
they will in future be renewed as she will.”
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