Chasidut for Bava Batra 149:8
והשאר פורסו הקב"ה על חומות ירושלים וזיוו מבהיק מסוף העולם ועד סופו שנאמר (ישעיהו ס, ג) והלכו גוים לאורך ומלכים לנוגה זרחך:
Companions must mean scholars,<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Heb. Talmide Hakamim, [H] lit.. 'disciples of the wise men', applied to scholars, distinguished students. Here taken to be synonymous with the righteous men mentioned previously. ');"><sup>15</sup></span> for it is said: Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the companions hearken for thy voice; cause me to hear it.<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Cant. VIII, 13. The 'companions' are the Talmide Hakamim. The entire Song of Songs is regarded in Talmudic literature as an allegorical poem on God, Israel and the Torah. The gardens are the Colleges. the companions are the scholars. 'Haberim' [H] companions in Cant. is taken to be equal [H] Habbarim in Job. ');"><sup>16</sup></span>
Kedushat Levi
Numbers 13,3. “Moses dispatched them from the desert of Parana at the command of Hashem;” [note that the Torah writes about this both in verse 3 and again in verse 17, so that exegesis for this repetition is forced upon us. Ed.]
Moses and his generation, predominantly part of the generation of the desert, are viewed as comparable to the written Torah, whereas Joshua and the people entering the Holy Land with him, are viewed as comparable to the oral Torah. This is also what the Talmud in Baba batra 75 referred to when the sages said that the face of Moses was comparable to the sun whereas the face of Joshua was comparable to the moon. The oral Torah is viewed as being the vessel which received input from the written Torah, just as the moon receives its light which it then reflects from the sun.
When the Torah writes here that Moses dispatched the 12 men to “tour” the land of Canaan, this is an allusion to the generation of the Israelites that were supposed to make their home in the Holy Land, i.e. it was appropriate for these men to reflect the oral Torah. Actually, seeing that, as we explained repeatedly in connection with the ability of the righteous in each generation being able to change G’d’s decrees, the “oral Torah” is not quite the same in each generation, as the sages in each generation have the power to add or change protective decrees knows as סיג לתורה “a protective fence around Biblical decrees.” This is also the reason why the Israelites who are perceived as symbolic of the oral Torah count their months according to the lunar calendar, the moon being symbolic of the oral Torah. [I believe that the author wished to explain why the name of Moses had to be mentioned again in this verse, seeing that he had been addressed by G’d in the verse before and the subject had not changed. Ed.]
Moses and his generation, predominantly part of the generation of the desert, are viewed as comparable to the written Torah, whereas Joshua and the people entering the Holy Land with him, are viewed as comparable to the oral Torah. This is also what the Talmud in Baba batra 75 referred to when the sages said that the face of Moses was comparable to the sun whereas the face of Joshua was comparable to the moon. The oral Torah is viewed as being the vessel which received input from the written Torah, just as the moon receives its light which it then reflects from the sun.
When the Torah writes here that Moses dispatched the 12 men to “tour” the land of Canaan, this is an allusion to the generation of the Israelites that were supposed to make their home in the Holy Land, i.e. it was appropriate for these men to reflect the oral Torah. Actually, seeing that, as we explained repeatedly in connection with the ability of the righteous in each generation being able to change G’d’s decrees, the “oral Torah” is not quite the same in each generation, as the sages in each generation have the power to add or change protective decrees knows as סיג לתורה “a protective fence around Biblical decrees.” This is also the reason why the Israelites who are perceived as symbolic of the oral Torah count their months according to the lunar calendar, the moon being symbolic of the oral Torah. [I believe that the author wished to explain why the name of Moses had to be mentioned again in this verse, seeing that he had been addressed by G’d in the verse before and the subject had not changed. Ed.]
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Sha'ar HaEmunah VeYesod HaChasidut
The Reshit Chochma dwelt on this point at length (shaar hakedusha, ch. 12). These are his holy words. “Just as we are required to believe in the whole Torah of Moshe, so are we required to believe in the words of the later halachic authorities (divrei sofrim), and in what they explained concerning the legends of the Torah (agadot). And even if one thinks that it is impossible, we are to ascribe the deficiency on our own understanding and not on their words. Anyone who derides any of their words shall be punished. This is as is written in the Gemara (Eruvin, 21b), ‘Rav Papa said in the name of Raba bar Ula, whosoever derides the words of the sages shall be sentenced to a hell of boiling dung.’ So too do we find in told in Gittin (57a) that a student of Rabbi Yochanan was punished for scoffing at Rabbi Yochanan for saying that in the future the Holy One, blessed be He, will bring precious gems thirty by thirty cubits in size.” In mentioning this Gemara, the Be’r haGolah (be’r 6, Rosh HaShanna, ch. 15) said, “how many piles of bones were made of this scoffer, in punishment for all that he did not believe.” When a man finds the words of the sages strange, he may then go on to assert that they are inventions. If a student were to ascend from level to level until God showed him the supernal angels, he would certainly believe in the words of the sages and their explanations. Yet he did not even believe in the simple meaning of their homilies. He rather turned them around in his mind to fit a certain intention, so Rabbi Yochanan gazed upon him and reduced him to a pile of bones. It would be well to see the Mahar”shal’s explanation of this story, who said that this man who did not believe was a heretic until he saw the angels. And so, a man must believe that even the simple explanations of the words of the sages are true. This is as the Ramban wrote in his Sefer Emuna V’Bitachon (ch. 9), “When the sages said that any given verse does not depart from the simple meaning, this does not mean that it can only be interpreted according to its simple meaning. We have leaned that though there are seventy “faces” to the Torah, not one of them may contradict the simple meaning.” This is just as the Ramban explained in his Hasagot on the Sefer HaMitzvot, that all that is written in the Torah, its explanations and the explications of its explanations which flow from a faithful source, are all expressing the truth of the Torah at all levels of truth. And our entire hold on the tradition of the Torah requires that we grasp the hem of the mantle of the Rishonim. For if we know and recognize that the Rishonim were like angels, then we are like men. And if we are to contend that the Rishonim were merely men like us, and therefore we can give our own critique and opinion of the validity of their teachings, then we are like donkeys, but not as the donkey of Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair.
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Kedushat Levi
Our sages in the Talmud Megillah 13 explain that the reason why Queen Esther was known as Esther (rather than as Hadassah, Esther 2,7) was that her beauty reminded people of the brilliance of the planet (star) Venus. [possibly the Talmud, which also explains her name as a reminder that she was a lady who could keep a secret, sees a dual meaning in her name, both brilliant light, and complete darkness, hiding things. Ed.] Some of G’d’s miracles involve changes in the laws of nature such as the splitting of the sea, turning the waters of the Nile into blood and redeeming the Jewish people from Egypt. Others are the result of a combination and timing of most unlikely circumstances.
Ahasverus’ taking a liking to Haman and trusting him blindly, and subsequently switching his trust to Esther who had never even revealed her nationality or religion to him, is just a minor example of this. Haman’s choosing to request permission from Ahasverus to hang Mordechai in the middle of the night, a night when the king could not sleep and he was reminded that Mordechai had saved his life from assassins, and that Esther at the time had brought this to his attention, and that Haman planned to kill his lifesaver, etc., are just a few of these propitious coincidences that resulted in Haman’s downfall and the salvation of the Jewish people at that time. The former kind of miracle is usually attributed to G’d in His capacity as the tetragram, י-ה-ו-ה, whereas the latter kind of miracle is attributed to G’d in His capacity as א-ד-נ-י. In the former case, G’d is “active, changing the rules of the game,” whereas in the case of the “hidden” miracle, the emphasis is on the recipient, מקבל. The difference can be compared to the difference between the sun and the moon, both of which give forth rays of light, the sun being a source of light, whereas the moon only reflects light that it had already received from the sun. Esther therefore is compared to the moon in the story of Purim.
When G’d performs supernatural miracles even the idolaters are humbled and recognize (temporarily) His mastery as we know from Exodus 18,1 where the Torah records that Yitro had heard about these great miracles and had concluded that Hashem is superior to any other force in the universe that claims the status of being a deity.
Amalek was the only nation among the wicked people denying G’d’s power, who challenged G’d by attacking His people, unprovoked, on ground (Compare Yalkut Shimoni, 938, and quoted by Rashi (Deuteronomy 25,18) that did not belong to any nation. According to Rashi, Amalek’s being the first to challenge the myth of G’d’s invincibility is compared to the first person jumping into boiling hot water of a bath tub, who, while being scalded nevertheless succeeds in cooling the water so that the next person following will hardly be scalded at all and subsequent people will feel comfortable in that tub.
[While both Rashi and Yalkut Shimoni quote this analogy, Rashi could not have taken it from Yalkut Shimoni, as the author of these Midrashim lived approximately 200 years later than Rashi. Ed.]
Seeing that Amalek initiated this rebellion against G’d, the Torah commands such far reaching punishment for that nation. If G’d now commanded the Israelites to wage war against Amalek, the reason was that seeing supernatural means of humbling idolaters had not sufficed, other, better understood means, i.e. warfare on earth, had to be reverted to. It was therefore appropriate that Joshua should conduct this battle as Moses had been instrumental in performing supernatural miracles, whereas Joshua would prove that G’d is able to deal with sinners without having to resort to supernatural means. Our sages alluded to this when they said in the Talmud Baba Batra 75 that if Moses’ face could be compared to the face of the sun, Joshua’s would be comparable to that of the moon.
Allusions found in the written Torah usually refer to the celestial regions or to matters supernatural, metaphysical, whereas allusions in the oral Torah usually refer to matters in the physical universe. The relationship between the written Torah and the oral Torah is that the written Torah is the source, i.e. like the sun, whereas the oral Torah is comparable to the moon, i.e. a recipient, reflecting the origin. Here, where nature was “repaired” by miracles similar to those experienced by Mordechai and Esther, i.e. “hidden miracles,” as described earlier, it was appropriate that we are told for the first time about parts of the written Torah to be committed to writing. [I believe the author draws a parallel between the antagonists of the Jewish people at that time, i.e. a descendant from Amalek, and the first defeat suffered by Amalek at the hands of Joshua, Ed.] The “allusions” referred to are the words זאת and זכרון in this short paragraph, and the written record of the Purim story in Esther as described in Esther 9,29-32. (Compare Talmud Megillah 7). The words זכרון בספר refer to the written record in the Torah, whereas the word זאת refers to the oral record in the halachah.
Ahasverus’ taking a liking to Haman and trusting him blindly, and subsequently switching his trust to Esther who had never even revealed her nationality or religion to him, is just a minor example of this. Haman’s choosing to request permission from Ahasverus to hang Mordechai in the middle of the night, a night when the king could not sleep and he was reminded that Mordechai had saved his life from assassins, and that Esther at the time had brought this to his attention, and that Haman planned to kill his lifesaver, etc., are just a few of these propitious coincidences that resulted in Haman’s downfall and the salvation of the Jewish people at that time. The former kind of miracle is usually attributed to G’d in His capacity as the tetragram, י-ה-ו-ה, whereas the latter kind of miracle is attributed to G’d in His capacity as א-ד-נ-י. In the former case, G’d is “active, changing the rules of the game,” whereas in the case of the “hidden” miracle, the emphasis is on the recipient, מקבל. The difference can be compared to the difference between the sun and the moon, both of which give forth rays of light, the sun being a source of light, whereas the moon only reflects light that it had already received from the sun. Esther therefore is compared to the moon in the story of Purim.
When G’d performs supernatural miracles even the idolaters are humbled and recognize (temporarily) His mastery as we know from Exodus 18,1 where the Torah records that Yitro had heard about these great miracles and had concluded that Hashem is superior to any other force in the universe that claims the status of being a deity.
Amalek was the only nation among the wicked people denying G’d’s power, who challenged G’d by attacking His people, unprovoked, on ground (Compare Yalkut Shimoni, 938, and quoted by Rashi (Deuteronomy 25,18) that did not belong to any nation. According to Rashi, Amalek’s being the first to challenge the myth of G’d’s invincibility is compared to the first person jumping into boiling hot water of a bath tub, who, while being scalded nevertheless succeeds in cooling the water so that the next person following will hardly be scalded at all and subsequent people will feel comfortable in that tub.
[While both Rashi and Yalkut Shimoni quote this analogy, Rashi could not have taken it from Yalkut Shimoni, as the author of these Midrashim lived approximately 200 years later than Rashi. Ed.]
Seeing that Amalek initiated this rebellion against G’d, the Torah commands such far reaching punishment for that nation. If G’d now commanded the Israelites to wage war against Amalek, the reason was that seeing supernatural means of humbling idolaters had not sufficed, other, better understood means, i.e. warfare on earth, had to be reverted to. It was therefore appropriate that Joshua should conduct this battle as Moses had been instrumental in performing supernatural miracles, whereas Joshua would prove that G’d is able to deal with sinners without having to resort to supernatural means. Our sages alluded to this when they said in the Talmud Baba Batra 75 that if Moses’ face could be compared to the face of the sun, Joshua’s would be comparable to that of the moon.
Allusions found in the written Torah usually refer to the celestial regions or to matters supernatural, metaphysical, whereas allusions in the oral Torah usually refer to matters in the physical universe. The relationship between the written Torah and the oral Torah is that the written Torah is the source, i.e. like the sun, whereas the oral Torah is comparable to the moon, i.e. a recipient, reflecting the origin. Here, where nature was “repaired” by miracles similar to those experienced by Mordechai and Esther, i.e. “hidden miracles,” as described earlier, it was appropriate that we are told for the first time about parts of the written Torah to be committed to writing. [I believe the author draws a parallel between the antagonists of the Jewish people at that time, i.e. a descendant from Amalek, and the first defeat suffered by Amalek at the hands of Joshua, Ed.] The “allusions” referred to are the words זאת and זכרון in this short paragraph, and the written record of the Purim story in Esther as described in Esther 9,29-32. (Compare Talmud Megillah 7). The words זכרון בספר refer to the written record in the Torah, whereas the word זאת refers to the oral record in the halachah.
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