Musar for Gittin 112:18

אונקלוס בר קלוניקוס בר אחתיה דטיטוס הוה בעי לאיגיורי אזל אסקיה לטיטוס בנגידא אמר ליה מאן חשיב בההוא עלמא אמר ליה ישראל מהו לאידבוקי בהו אמר ליה מילייהו נפישין ולא מצית לקיומינהו זיל איגרי בהו בההוא עלמא והוית רישא דכתיב (איכה א, ה) היו צריה לראש וגו' כל המיצר לישראל נעשה ראש אמר ליה דיניה דההוא גברא במאי א"ל

Abba Hanan said: Who is a mighty one like unto thee, O Jah?15 Who is like Thee, mighty in self-restraint,16 that Thou didst hear the blaspheming and insults of that wicked man and keep silent? In the school of R. Ishmael it was taught; Who is like thee among the gods [elim]?17 Who is like thee among the dumb ones [illemim]. Titus further took the curtain and shaped it like a basket and brought all the vessels of the Sanctuary and put them in it, and then put them on board ship to go and triumph with them in his city, as it says, And withal I saw the wicked buried, and they that come to the grave and they that had     done right went away from the holy place and were forgotten in the city.18 Read not keburim [buried] but kebuzim [collected]; read not veyishtakehu [and were forgotten] but veyishtabehu [and triumphed]. Some say that keburim [can be retained], because even things that were buried were disclosed to them. A gale sprang up at sea which threatened to wreck him. He said: Apparently the power of the God of these people is only over water. When Pharaoh came He drowned him in water, when Sisera came He drowned him in water. He is also trying to drown me in water. If he is really mighty, let him come up on the dry land and fight with me. A voice went forth from heaven saying; Sinner, son of sinner, descendant of Esau the sinner, I have a tiny creature in my world called a gnat. (Why is it called a tiny creature? Because it has an orifice for taking in but not for excreting.) Go up on the dry land and make war with it. When he landed the gnat came and entered his nose, and it knocked against his brain for seven years. One day as he was passing a blacksmith's it heard the noise of the hammer and stopped. He said; I see there is a remedy. So every day they brought a blacksmith who hammered before him. If he was a non-Jew they gave him four zuz, if he was a Jew they said, It is enough that you see the suffering of your enemy. This went on for thirty days, but then the creature got used to it.19 It has been taught: R. Phineas b. 'Aruba said; I was in company with the notables of Rome, and when he died they split open his skull and found there something like a sparrow two sela's in weight. A Tanna taught; Like a young dove two pounds in weight. Abaye said; We have it on record that its beak was of brass and its claws of iron. When he died he said: Burn me and scatter my ashes over the seven seas so that the God of the Jews should not find me and bring me to trial. Onkelos son of Kolonikos20 was the son of Titus's sister. He had a mind to convert himself to Judaism. He went and raised Titus from the dead by magical arts, and asked him; 'Who is most in repute in the [other] world? He replied: Israel. What then, he said,     about joining them? He said: Their observances are burdensome and you will not be able to carry them out. Go and attack them in that world and you will be at the top as it is written, Her adversaries are become the head21 etc.; whoever harasses Israel becomes head. He asked him:

Shenei Luchot HaBerit

We are told in 14,20 that after the angel of the Lord took up his position between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of the Israelites, ולא קרב זה אל זה כל הלילה, "that one did not approach the other during the entire night." We may understand the word לילה to be an allusion to לילית, one of the perennial accusers of the Jewish people. The Torah tells us that the efforts of Lilith during that night to accuse Israel at the Celestial Court failed. When the Torah writes in 15,26 that if the Jewish people listen to G–d's voice and perform His commandments: כל המחלה אשר שמתי במצרים לא אשים עליך, "I will not set the whole מחלה against you but against Egypt," the Torah refers to the "harlot" Machalat. I have found in the commentary of Rabbenu Bachyah that the word אשר which can also be rad as ראש, has the same numerical value as the abbreviation of the Ten Plagues mentioned in the name of Rabbi Yehudah in הגדה של פסח, דצ"ך עד"ש באח"ב =501. .

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Shenei Luchot HaBerit

We find that the שר של מצרים, Egypt's spiritual representative in the Celestial Spheres, was called בכור, i.e. he was the first or senior of the representatives of the seventy Gentile nations. We have explained previously that this spiritual representative of Egypt was described in פרשת מקץ as the מרכבת המשנה, G–d's secondary chariot or carrier. Egypt was second only to the land of Israel in this respect. The land of Israel was G–d's own share in this world. Egypt, however, played the role of first-born amongst the 70 Gentile nations. As a corollary we find that physically speaking, Esau was a first-born, for it was his respective שר who appeared first at the Celestial Court. This שר is a powerful force seeing that his protege became the instrument that destroyed the Holy Temple because of our sins, as mentioned in Psalms 137,7 where the Jewish people are reported as asking G–d to redress that outrage. Alas, this שר is still very powerful. We must view the שר של מצרים as the first of a number of forces who succeeded in dominating Israel in exile. G–d humiliated that force at the time of the Exodus. The שר של עשו, on the other hand, is the very last of such forces. He is so powerful that the present exile is called the גלות אדום. He may therefore be considered the head of the existing שרים. It is this force that Jeremiah refers to in Lamentations 1,5: "Its (Israel's) oppressors have become לראש, a head." Whenever an oppressor of Israel is temporarily successful, he becomes a ראש, head. What all this means is that whereas the שכינה, G–d's Presence, does not depart from Israel, does not ignore what happens to Israel, these happenings are nonetheless delegated by G–d to a שר. When our sages frequently describe the שכינה as being in exile, this is what they mean. When a שר assumes a role as ראש, this means that G–d's Presence has subordinated itself, so to speak. In practice this means that Esau has regained his position as Isaac's first-born and will retain it until the redemption, when G–d will de-throne him. All the above is an "external" view of things.

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Shenei Luchot HaBerit

We have been handed over to the dominion of a force which after all originated in the regions of sanctity and purity, i.e. we have been subjected to their ראש, which is metaphor for their origin in Holy Spheres. These pagans are not allowed, however, to have sin-offerings presented on their behalf on the altar of the Holy Temple because their sin-offerings are impurity personified. All of this is the mystical dimension of the 70 bulls the Jewish people offered on behalf of the Gentile nations during the course of the holiday of Tabernacles as described in Numbers 29,14-34. It will be explained there in greater detail. While we have said that Esau was first-born from the physical aspect, i.e. that he was born first, we nonetheless look forward to the time of the redemption when it is he who will become the עקב, heel, not Jacob. When the Torah describes Jacob as holding on to the heel of Esau in Genesis 25,27, this is an allusion to Esau being the last of the שרים to have dominion over Israel at any time.

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