Musar על ברכות 68:6

The seventh: "He will again have mercy on us" - behold, the Holy One, blessed be He, does not follow the trait of flesh and blood. [That trait is that] if [someone] angers him - if he is appeased from him, he is a little appeased, [but] not like the previous love [he had for him]. But if a person sinned [to God] and he repents, his stature is greater with the Holy One, blessed be He, [than before]. And this is [the meaning of] "In the place that penitents stand, [even] completely righteous ones cannot stand" (Berakhot 34b). And the reason is like they explained in the chapter [entitled] HaBoneh (it is in Menachot 29b in our texts) regarding why [the letter,] hey is made like a portico: "Such that the one that wants to exit from his world [may] exit." The explanation is that the world was created with a hey. And the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world widely open to the side of evil and sin. There is no side that does not have physicality, the evil impulse and defect - like a type of portico. It does not have fences but rather has a large breach, open towards the side of evil, to the bottom side. How many openings are there for anyone who wants to exit from his world - he cannot turn to a side that he will not find a side of sin and iniquity to go out to the external forces (chitsonim)! But it is [also] open from above; so that if he repents, he will be accepted. And they asked, "Let him be taken back through [the bottom]!" [They answered,] "the matter will not help." They [meant] with this that one who repents will not suffice to be fenced from iniquity [with a fence] like the fence of the righteous ones, since they has did not sin - a small fence suffices for them. However a small fence will not suffice for the sinner that sinned and repented. Rather, he needs to fence himself with several difficult fences, since he already breached the small fence once. If he approaches there, his impulse seduces him easily. Rather he needs to distance himself with a very great distancing. And for this [reason], he does not enter through the opening of the portico, where the breach is there. Rather, he ascends and enters through the small opening, [such that] he makes several difficulties and mortifications for himself and [thereby] closes the breaches.

G–d has, however, provided a remedy for those Israelites who have become subject to these influences. This remedy is known as תשובה, repentance. Repentance possesses the power to bring such sinners "back into the fold," into the right side of the emanations which represents holiness. This was pointed out by Nachmanides; the relevant verse is 30,11 which refers to repentance. The mystical dimension of repentance is part of the emanation בינה. Students of the Kabbalah are aware that this emanation cannot be accessed by the Gentiles. The latter can access only the emanations from חסד "downwards." Canaanites have access to these lower emanations. Ishmael was sired by Abraham who represented the emanation חסד. Hence Gentiles are able to relate to this emanation. Being offspring of Isaac, who represented the next "lower" emanation גבורה, the descendants of Esau also could access that emanation. Having delineated the above exceptions, the 70 nations can access only the שרים ומזלות which we have already described. The inability of these 70 nations to access the emanations of either חסד or גבורה explains why the touching by members of such nations disqualifies wine, an expression of G–d's bounty. All this because of the pollutant of the serpent which spread through mankind as a result of Eve having squeezed out the fruit of the tree of knowledge (reputedly the grape). It thus became what is termed in our portion (29,17) פורה ראש ולענה, "a fruit turning into poison weed and wormwood." Concerning this type of wine, Solomon (Proverbs 23,31) has said: "Do not look at wine when it is red." Since the emanation בינה is not exposed to the "touch" of the Gentiles, the wine we find in that domain is the kind of which our sages have said that it has been preserved in its original grapes ever since the six days of Creation, in order to be served up to the righteous in the Hereafter (Berachot 34b). This is an allusion to the six "revealed" days of Creation remaining as they are, i.e. accessible to contact by the Gentiles. The six days of Creation known as the days of בנין, the concealed aspect of the work of Creation, serve as an area in which this wine is stored for the eventual enjoyment by the righteous. The penitent must elevate himself to a level that qualifies him to partake of that wine in the future. He is able to burst the confining shackles of the קליפות, symbols of the constraints imposed upon him by the evil urge, so that he can rejoin the mainstream of the Jewish people. The בעל תשובה together with the other righteous will then experience the revelation of G–d's secrets as a result of having partaken of this wine. This is the meaning of Psalms 25,14: "G–d's secrets are reserved for those who fear Him." The numerical value of the word סוד, secret, is 70. It alludes to the 70 who formed the nucleus of the Jewish people who first went down to Egypt. Because they were all a single "person," נפש, they all have a share in the World to Come. It is known to Kabbalists that the emanation בינה is the mystical dimension of the World to Come, a domain where G–d and His Name are One and where a unified people of Israel cleave to Him. It is only the people of Israel who are referred to by the title אדם; by describing the creation of אדם as "in G–d's likeness" (Genesis 1,26), the Torah concurrently refers to the creation of the Jewish people. When we reflect on the respective meanings of אדם and אדמה, earth, we must conjure up in our minds that it is the function of this אדם to serve as the מרכבה, carrier, or better אדמה of G–d's Presence. G–d is perceived as sitting on a throne. The throne is standing on this אדמה, i.e. is supported by אדם, the Jewish people. It follows that any misconduct by Israel in our terrestrial spheres undermines the "floor" on which G–d's throne is based.

And, likewise, one who is accustomed to eat unkosher meat or to feed it to a Jew. And this is intimated in the Torah, it being written (Shemoth 23:1): "And men of holiness shall you be to Me, and flesh torn in the field you shall not eat. To the dog shall you throw it," after which it is written (Ibid. 23:1): "You shall not spread a false report." It emerges, then, that the verse of "To the dog shall you throw it" is found between these two sins — eating treifah [torn flesh] and speaking lashon hara, to teach us that for these two sins, a man may be reincarnated as a dog. And this is what King David, may peace be upon him, intimated in (Psalms 22:21): "Rescue from the sword, my soul; [rescue] from the dog, my soul," followed by "I will speak Your name to my brothers, etc." That is, I do not use my tongue to speak lashon hara, to be punished therefor by this dreadful reincarnation, but I use it to praise You and to exhort Israel, that they should fear You and praise You. And know that the Kabbalists have said that even though when a man is reincarnated in the form of another man he is unaware of his prior state, still when he is reincarnated as an animal or as a bird, he is aware of his prior state and suffers terribly at having descended from heaven from the form of a man to the form of a beast. Therefore, every man should fear and tremble and be soft of heart while he yet lives, while he yet has free will and knows his G-d, so that He forgives his sins and removes His wrath from him. And when his soul leaves him he will rest in peace and repose in His shade in Gan Eden. For He is gracious and merciful and abundant in lovingkindness. And (Berachoth 34b): "In the place where penitents stand, absolute Tzaddikim cannot stand." Until here, the words of the Sefer Charedim, in short.

As to what our Sages, of blessed memory, said (Berakhot 34b), “In the place⁴⁶See Meyer Waxman A History of Jewish Literature (New York: Bloch, 1933) Vol. 2, pp. 278-279 for an analysis of our author’s unique treatment of this passage. where the repentant stand, the completely righteous cannot stand,” they said the truth. For obviously, the righteous men and the intermediate ones have each one a lofty place near the Creator, blessed be He. Therefore, our Sages, of blessed memory, said that in the place where the repentant ones are, the righteous do not stand: they meant that their place was not among the repentant ones but in another place. There is still another meaning, namely, that the Creator will do for the sake of the penitents more than He will do for the sake of the righteous, just as He did for the sake of the people of Nineveh, and as He did for the sake of Ahab with whom he was extremely patient, and all this that the Creator might show the wicked His love for the repentant ones. This is an illustration of His hand being outstretched to the repentant ones in order that they should repent of their evil, and for this reason He will at times do miracles for the penitents such as He would not do for the righteous. This is not because the virtue of the repentant ones is as great as the virtue of the righteous, but because in the case of the repentant ones, if the Creator does not receive them and does not show His love for him, they will return at once to their evil ways. But as for the righteous man, because the Creator knows his heart, He does not reveal His love to him, for the Creator knows the integrity of his heart, and that the righteous man will not blaspheme God or be wrathful because he quarrels with His judgments. A parable on this theme would be a king who has two servants, one faithful and the second a flatterer, and the flatterer angered the king and did all sorts of evil things to him, all the evil that he could, and the king was wrathful with him and cast him out from his presence. Thereafter, the flatterer returned to seek the good will of the king, and he fell at his feet, and the king had pity upon him and received him. One day the faithful servant made a request of the king, and the flatterer made a different request of him, and the king ordered that the request of the flatterer be granted, and did not grant the request of the faithful servant because he knew the honest heart of his faithful servant, and he knew that his faithful servant would not consider the refused request as an evil thing, and that the faithful servant would not reproach himself for being faithful. As for the flatterer, the king knew that if he did not grant his request, the flatterer would return to his original evil and consider the king’s refusal wicked, and in the evil of his heart he would repent that he had served his king, and he would say to his companions, “It is not fitting to serve a king such as this, for I requested of him a simple thing and he did not grant it. How then can any man trust him?” This is the way of the Creator with repentant ones. Here is another interpretation, and it is the right one. There are repentant people whose hearts are as honest as those of the righteous and those who are called righteous. In the beginning, they were perfectly righteous, and they erred, or it happened that they sinned, their evil inclination was stronger than their good inclination. After this, they returned to their original righteousness. Their righteousness and their service to God were doubled because of their desire to atone for their sin which they had done, and these are more honored ones than the righteous, for their righteousness is double that of the righteous who never sinned. Of these one can say, “In the place where the repentant stand, the completely righteous cannot stand.”

מי האיש אשר בנה בית חדש ולא חנכו ילך וישוב לביתו . The same rule applies to someone who has planted a vineyard and not consecrated it, or to someone who is betrothed to a girl and has not yet wed her. Remember that there are three periods each of which is described as עולם הבא, "the World to Come," as we know from the Sabbath morning prayer הכל יודוך. In our liturgy we describe these various periods of time as 1) חיי העולם הבא, 2) ימות המשיח, 3) תחיית המתים. The period described as חיי העולם הבא refers to a "home," i.e. a dwelling equipped with the type of furnishings that are in keeping with the relative merit each righteous person has achieved during his lifetime on earth. The period called ימות המשיח refers to the period when man and woman join in matrimony, i.e. when G–d and the mystical equivalent of the Jewish people called כנסת ישראל form a permanent bond. This period is referred to by the prophet Isaiah 62,5: "As a youth espouses a maiden, your sons shall espouse Me; and as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your G–d rejoice over you." After this period called תחיית המתים, "the resurrection of the dead," there comes the period of eternity, something which has not been described by any prophet since none have been shown it. Our sages have alluded to this period as the period of the יין המשומר בענביו מששת ימי בראשית והוא כרם השם צבאות, a period when wine will be served which has been preserved in its grapes ever since the six days of Creation. G–d regards this as His personal vineyard. A sinner has to return home instead of fighting in the war called מלחמת רשות. A sinner is a person who has not yet completed his preparations for entry into any of these phases of the World to Come. The Torah merely alludes to this by giving examples of people who have undertaken three different types of crucial enterprises without having completed their tasks. When the Torah stresses that anyone of these three categories of people is to ישוב לביתו "return" home, this is a not so subtle hint to the sinner to engage in repentance, תשובה.

Laws concerning property damage, financial compensations, etc. in the portion of משפטים are listed right after the Ten Commandments to show that all legislation emanates from G–d. When our sages in Avot described תורה, עבודה, גמילות חסדים "Torah, service of the Lord, deeds of loving kindness" as well as אמת, דין, and שלום , "truth, justice and harmony" as being the pillars which are the foundation that all civilization is based on, that is what they had in mind. אמת and תשובה are category A; עבודה and תפלה are category B; תורה and דין are category C; צדקה, and גמילות חסדים are category D, the final category. There remains the pillar of שלום, peace, harmony, which must be viewed as the "seal" of the previous four categories listed. Unless there is שלום, none of the other categories can achieve their purpose. This is what the prophet Zachariah 8,19, has in mind when he says "והאמת והשלום, אהבו!" "love truth and peace!" He states that success and happiness are contingent on the presence of these factors. It is written concerning the repentant sinner "peace, peace to the distant as well as to the near one," which our sages interpret as referring to people who were once far removed from our tradition but have found their way back (Isaiah 57,19). The "seal" of the עבודה, the priestly blessing, in our daily prayers is שלום, peace, as is the concluding benediction in our principal prayer, the עמידה. We find a similar thought expressed in Isaiah 32,17: "The work of the righteous shall be peace."

The general rule of the matter is that a man should repent of all bad qualities, and one who does repent his evil qualities needs very great strengthening, for when a man is already used to them it is very difficult for him to abandon them, and on this subject it is said, "Let the wicked forsake his way and the man of iniquity his thoughts" (Is. 55:7). And let not a man who is truly repentant think that he is far away from the status of the righteous because of the sins and the wrongs which he has committed. It is not so, for he is as beloved and dear before the Creator, Blessed be He, as though he had never sinned. Not only this, but his reward is great, for he has tasted the taste of sin, and yet abandoned it and conquered his evil inclination. Our Sages said, "In the place where penitents stand, even the wholly righteous cannot stand" (Berakoth 34b), that is to say, their status is even higher than that of those who never sinned, for they subdue the evil inclination more than the others. All of the prophets without exception commanded us concerning repentance (ibid.), and it is only through repentance that Israel is redeemed (see Yoma 86b, Sanh. 97b). And the Torah has already assured us that Israel will ultimately repent at the end of their exile, and they will immediately be redeemed. As it is said, "And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessings and the curse which I have set before thee and thou shalt bethink thyself… and shalt return unto the Lord thy God… that then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the peoples" (Deut. 30:1—3).

We have learned in Avot 4,21, that "jealousy, lust, greed, and ego (i.e. the desire for public recognition) drive man from this world." These very negative virtues had driven Adam from the world. There was the jealousy of the serpent of Adam possessing Eve, its pursuit to gratify its lust, and the pursuit of ego, i.e. Adam and Eve wanted to usurp the unique place of G–d in the universe, since they responded to the lure והייתם כאלוקים, "you will be like G–d." Eve had squeezed out a cluster of grapes, ate it, found that they were unripe. This suggests that in this material world one must not pursue honor. Honor will be inherited by the scholars in the world to come. At that time what is written in Isaiah 24,23: "G–d's Presence will be revealed to His elders," will be fulfilled. This is what is meant when the sages describe יין המשומר, "well aged wine," as being part of the reward in store for the righteous in the future. Concerning what happens to the wicked at that time, it is written in Malachi 3,19: "For lo! that day is at hand, burning like a furnace.. All the arrogant and doers of evil shall be straw, etc." It also says in Samuel II 22,9: "smoke rose from His nostrils," i.e. when G–d was angry, and burned those whom He was angry at." Since we have shown that what happens on earth has its counterpart in the heavens, the Torah reports that the season the spies were dispatched was when the grape harvest commences on earth, i.e. a hint that many grapes are not ripe yet. The spies ignored the items mentioned in Avot as destructive. They ate unripe grapes, i.e they were greedy, they were concerned with their own honor and glory, hence they had to suffer what is described in Proverbs 10,26.

When the Midrash describes G–d as saying: "You are the vineyard and I am the watchman," this is a reference to the crown of monarchy as I have explained above. It is a reference to the gift of the World to Come, as I have already mentioned. Our sages are on record as saying: "All the prophets have prophesied only about the days of the Messiah (in this world); only G–d Himself has an idea of what the World to Come will be like" (Berachot 34). What has been reserved for revelation at that future time is called the יין המשומר, the wine which has been preserved (within its grapes) since the days before Adam was expelled from גן עדן. It is concerning this wine that G–d is portrayed as saying: "You are the vineyard and I am the keeper." The word שומר, refers to the wine which was preserved since the idyllic times when man was still at home in Gan Eden. When the time comes to partake from this wine, ביום ההוא אקים את סוכת דוד הנופלת, "On that day I will re-establish the broken down hut of David" (Amos 9,11). This is why G–d is quoted in the Midrash as asking Israel to build a hut for Him. When Israel erects a hut in our domain, the hut of David which has collapsed can be rebuilt in the corresponding Celestial Regions. It will then advance spiritually ever higher until the mystical level of the emanation בינה, the root of עולם הבא, the World to Come, where the יין המשומר is carefully stored to prevent any Gentile touching it. The Gentiles' claim, if at all, to this עולם הבא does not extend beyond the domain of בנין, i.e. the emanations below בינה. The Gentiles' claim to any share in עולם הבא is based on Ishmael's descent from Abraham, whose outstanding characteristic was חסד, loving kindness. Esau's claim to any share in עולם הבא is similarly based only on the fact that he was the issue of patriarch Isaac. The reason that the Midrash did not bother to quote a verse confirming its claim is that the subject matter is עולם הבא, a subject scriptures have nothing to say about.

We can now understand Rashi's comment on the first verse in our פרשה that the Torah evidently speaks of a מלחמת רשות, an expansionary war. The Torah had already stated that in the wars fought to conquer ארץ ישראל no prisoners must be taken. It says: לא תחיה כל נשמה, "You must not allow anyone to survive" (20,16). In Sotah 35b, however, Rashi derives the permission to take Canaanite prisoners from the fact that the Torah must speak about an expansionary war and the prisoner in question is a Canaanite who had been resident outside the boundaries of ארץ ישראל to whom the commandment: "Do not allow a soul to survive" does not apply. Rashi purports to quote the Sifri on our verse: Should it occur to you that this verse speaks about a campaign involving the capture of ארץ ישראל, this is impossible since we must not take any prisoners from the inhabitants of ארץ ישראל. Therefore the reason for this verse is only to permit you to keep a Canaanite prisoner of war captured in another country. [The wording of Sifri as printed in our editions (Malbim) is different from Rashi. Ed.] Let us now consider the implications of the above comments on the allegorical explanation of the passage. We would say that though the Torah wages war against the evil urge it does not envisage total annihilation of the evil urge, but rather the Torah suggests that it must be controlled, i.e. be taken captive. Utter destruction of the evil urge would result in utter destruction of mankind; there would no longer be an urge to indulge in union with one's wife and begetting children. The evil urge in all its facets including the sexual urge is to be indulged only minimally under controlled conditions. The Torah's description of the feeling of fondness entertained by the captor for his captive, i.e. וחשקת בה, is a metaphor for the positive feelings we often entertain for the evil urge. The message the Torah has for us is that as soon as we experience such feelings of attraction towards anything sinful we must suppress the evil urge by making it appear as despicable as per the examples in our passage which are designed to make the sexually attractive prisoner lose her allure.This is the advantage of the repentant sinners of whom our sages in Berachot 34b state that their moral/ethical plateau cannot be equaled even by the perfectly righteous who have nothing to repent of. The repentant sinner is at an advantage over the perfectly righteous because he has trained himself to resist temptation when it assails him. The totally righteous person, who has never been tempted has not yet learned that he has to "stand" aside lest temptation may overcome him. I have elaborated on this whole subject in the appropriate chapter of my treatise עשרה מאמרות.