אשכחיה רבה בר שילא לאליהו א"ל מאי קא עביד הקב"ה א"ל קאמר שמעתא מפומייהו דכולהו רבנן ומפומיה דר"מ לא קאמר א"ל אמאי משום דקא גמר שמעתא מפומיה דאחר א"ל אמאי ר"מ רמון מצא תוכו אכל קליפתו זרק א"ל השתא קאמר מאיר בני אומר בזמן שאדם מצטער שכינה מה לשון אומרת קלני מראשי קלני מזרועי אם כך הקב"ה מצטער על דמן של רשעים ק"ו על דמן של צדיקים שנשפך
Rabba the son of Shila came upon Elijah. He said to him, "What does the Holy One, Blessed be He, do?" He said to him, "He says, 'I have heard [this teaching] from the mouth of all the rabbis (ie. this from this rabbi, that from that rabbi, etc.)', and 'from the mouth of Rabbi Meir', He does not say." He said to him, "Why?" Because he learned teachings from the mouth of Acher. He said to him, "Why [is this a disqualification]? Rabbi Meir found a pomegranate; he ate the inside and threw away the peel!" He said to him, "Now He says, 'Meir, my son [instead of 'Rabbi Meir'] says, 'When a person is punished, what does the [Divine] presence articulate? 'I am burdened by my head [which breathed life into the person], I am burdened by my arm [which created the person].' If so, the Holy One, Blessed be He, is pained over the blood of the wicked; logically, <em>a fortiori</em>, [He is pained] over the spilled blood of the righteous.'"
Kedushat Levi
Yet another interpretation of the opening verse in our portion. We have a rule that when someone prays on behalf of a Jew or Israel, which is in trouble, it is important that he prefaces his prayer by pointing out Israel’s virtues first, i.e. that such a virtuous nation surely does not deserve the troubles that have come upon it. He must also point out that when any troubles befall a member of the Jewish people, the real target is G’d Himself seeing that He is our father. This is what the Talmud Chagigah 15 means when it quotes Rabbi Meir saying: “when a person is in difficulties, the Shechinah reacts to this by saying: “My head hurts, My arm hurts.” In other words, G’d feels personally hurt by whatever hurts a member of His favourite people. It is therefore reasonable to remind G’d of this before pleading for the individual Israelite on whose behalf one offers a prayer to Hashem. This is the allusion in the words כי תשא את ראש בני ישראל, “when you point out what ails the head of the Jewish people, etc.” The word פקודיהם, is used to describe shortcomings of the Jewish people, their needs, in the sense it is used in the verse we quoted from Samuel I 20,25. The words ונתנו איש כופר נפשו לה', refer to man reminding G’d how his soul is inextricably linked to G’d.
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