Chasidut על סנהדרין 116:27
Kedushat Levi
Exodus10,2 “and in order that you may tell in the hearing of your son and your grandson, etc.” “how I have made a mockery of the Egyptians and how I have displayed My signs among them., in order that you may know that I am Hashem.” We need to analyse not only the peculiar phraseology in this paragraph but also why G’d addresses the words: וידעתם כי אני ה', “you will know that I am Hashem to the Israelites instead of to the Egyptians, by writing: “:וידעו כי אני ה' “so that they will know that I am Hashem.”
It appears that the gentile nations do not have access to G’d through His regular activities, i.e. nature, but only though supernatural events, miracles within the framework of known natural events which have been upset. The plagues that occurred in Egypt were of that category. Matters that are altogether beyond nature are not accessible to the gentile nations. This explains why the Talmud in Sanhedrin 58 states that when a gentile observes the Sabbath Day as does a Jew, i.e. the day on which G’d rested, and is to be emulated as such, he not only does not earn credits for this, but is guilty of the death penalty as he breached the command to earn his livelihood by the sweat of his brow, (without break). G’d’s message to the Jewish people, in the verses above, is a hint at the different nature of the gentile nations, even at the time when the Sabbath as basic legislation for the Jewish people had not yet been legally formulated. [The reader is reminded of the Midrashim that credit Moses with having secured the Sabbath as a day of rest from labour by Pharaoh, not for religious reasons, but to enable the Jews to perform better work for the Egyptians by recharging their physical batteries on that day.” Ed.]
It appears that the gentile nations do not have access to G’d through His regular activities, i.e. nature, but only though supernatural events, miracles within the framework of known natural events which have been upset. The plagues that occurred in Egypt were of that category. Matters that are altogether beyond nature are not accessible to the gentile nations. This explains why the Talmud in Sanhedrin 58 states that when a gentile observes the Sabbath Day as does a Jew, i.e. the day on which G’d rested, and is to be emulated as such, he not only does not earn credits for this, but is guilty of the death penalty as he breached the command to earn his livelihood by the sweat of his brow, (without break). G’d’s message to the Jewish people, in the verses above, is a hint at the different nature of the gentile nations, even at the time when the Sabbath as basic legislation for the Jewish people had not yet been legally formulated. [The reader is reminded of the Midrashim that credit Moses with having secured the Sabbath as a day of rest from labour by Pharaoh, not for religious reasons, but to enable the Jews to perform better work for the Egyptians by recharging their physical batteries on that day.” Ed.]
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