#Malbim
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
Note
Thanks for your help with head coverings-by-devorah.
Is the site https://hebrewnations.com/ actually Jewish?
Itâs giving me weird vibes.
(My jumblr is @tzipporahs-well.)
Rating: Not Jewish (and also extremely racist and bonkers)
You are right about the weird vibes, it is in the category of what we would call "Biblical pseudoscience". Hebrewnations.com is an offshoot of Brit-Am, an organization headed by Yair Davidiy. The sole mission of Brit-Am is to "prove" that different nations and ethnic groups around the world are actually part of the lost Ten Tribes, which also involves greatly misinterpreting other Indigineous groups' beliefs and origins. On his LinkedIn, Yair Davidiy lists absolutely no qualifications- he calls himself a Rabbi, and yet no Rabbinical school is listed. He calls himself an expert in biblical archaeology, and yet no program is listed, not even a BS or BA.
Yair Davidiy can also be found on Atlantipedia, a pseudoscience website that promotes archaeologicial misinformation, and that's a damning enough fact.
Among his many outlandish claims, Yair Davidiy identifies the French as the tribe of Reuven, the Celts as Shimon, the Italians as Levi (nevermind that Levites are still around today), the Finns as Yissachar, Holland as Zevulun, the Goths as Dan, the Norwegians as Naftali, the Swedes as Gad, the Vandals as Asher, the Scythians as Yosef, and the Normans as Binyamin. (Nevermind that Binyamin was not included in the lost Ten Tribes).
Davidiy also claims that Mashiach ben Yosef will actually be found among the Anglo-Saxons, which he uses interchangably with white USAmericans.
He claims:
There will be a future re-union of Judah and Joseph. Neither the MALBIM nor Rabbi Schneerson were consciously aware that JOSEPH is to be identified with the "Anglo-Saxon" related peoples, i.e. the British, North Americans, and their "colonial" cousins. Nevertheless, their description of the relationship between Judah and Joseph finds some parallels in recent times with that between the Jews and the "Anglo-Saxon" nations. As pointed out in our book âEphraimâ (1995, 2001), the "Anglo-Saxon" nations are really the only cultural-ethnic bloc that is capable (barring supernatural miracles) of physically fulfilling the role ascribed to "Joseph" in Jewish sources. They are the only ones capable of defeating the combined forces of Edom (Germany and Europe) and Ishmael (the Moslem peoples) in armed confrontation. They are also the only ones who unto now have actively assisted the Jews in settling the Land of Israel. They have taken this task upon themselves almost as part of an obligation springing from their own national heritage. This point holds true despite mistaken and negative stands often taken by certain politicians and national leaders in America and Britain against the Jewish-Israelis. There are some bad Israelites, some bad Jews, and some bad people of other origins in Israelite nations. The "Anglo-Saxon" nations in the past have proved themselves capable of successfully organizing the orderly and secure mass movement of their own peoples in settling them overseas, in new countries. Eventually a re-union between Joseph and Judah will take place. The sooner the better.Â
Essentially, he has created a pseudo-religion of his own, based in American exceptionalism. He has also allied himself with the American Evangelical Christians who only support Israel because they believe it will bring about the end of times that will purge any non-Christian from the earth (including Jews). He also frequently uses the (Christian) King James Bible translation of the 'Old Testament', which is of course concerning for someone who claims to promote Jewish ideas.
The only good thing is that he doesn't seem to have much of a following.
So, as far as we know, Yair Davidiy is a Jew, but his organization and ideas most certainly are not.
#general category topic#jumblr#not actually jewish#christianity#pseudoscience#hebrewnations.com#racism#supercessionism
50 notes
¡
View notes
Text
Toldot
Isaac digs a well, it is contested by those who live in the land, and rather than fight he moves and digs another well. Isaac in this parsha does not rely on Hashemâs promise to Avraham that the land will be theirs. In contrast, he cedes the land to those who are already living there rather than shed blood fighting for it. Until finally we hear âHe moved from there and dug yet another well, and they did not quarrel over it; so he called it Rehoboth, saying, âNow at last ×××× has granted us ample space to increase in the land.ââ Multiple commentators including the 19th century Malbim and medieval commentator Radak suggest that it is because Isaac moved to a place in the land without strife he can now settle and multiply. I also suggest that this passage suggests that there is enough room in the land for all. That we donât need to fight over the land and can all live there.
Today this feels almost impossible. This is maybe about Palestine|Israel where settlers steal land in the West Bank and there are cries to eliminate the Gaza strip. But this is also about a rise in Eco-fascism around the world. Where people claim that there need to be fewer people and that is how we will solve the climate crisis. That is not how we will solve the climate crisis. There are enough resources for everyone. We can be like Isaac and dig enough wells. We can be like Isaac and not fight over a specific sliver of land. There is room for everyone. There being room for everyone might look like some of us in the privileged global north ceding some of our resources. Acknowledging that some of the privileges we have make climate change worse, and giving seats at the table to Indigenous communities who manage 80% of the worlds biodiversity. Itâs possible, we just need to be like Isaac and live our well behind of the sake of peace and to share our land with our neighbors.
0 notes
Link
ANIOĹ PURYM https://vk.com/wall467751157_2743 O komentarzach Malbima do KsiÄgi Estery [9:17; 9:18], ktĂłre w pierwszym polskim wydaniu sÄ
ale ich nie ma https://sway.cloud.microsoft/6uudPXrWGmLaXRgn "[15.] Ĺťydzi, ktĂłrzy byli w Szuszan, zebrali siÄ takĹźe czternastego dnia miesiÄ
ca adar i zabili w Szuszan trzystu ludzi, ale po ich majÄ
tek nie siÄgnÄli. [16.] Pozostali Ĺťydzi, ktĂłrzy byli w krajach krĂłla, zebrali siÄ i powstali (w obronie) swojego Ĺźycia, by wyswobodziÄ siÄ od swych wrogĂłw. I spoĹrĂłd tych, ktĂłrzy ich nienawidzili, zabili siedemdziesiÄ
t piÄÄ tysiÄcy, ale po ich majÄ
tek nie siÄgnÄli. [17.] (ByĹo to) w trzynastym dniu miesiÄ
ca adar. I odetchnÄli czternastego dnia tego miesiÄ
ca, i uczynili go dniem ucztowania i radoĹci. [18.] A Ĺťydzi, ktĂłrzy byli w Szuszan, zebrali siÄ trzynastego i czternastego dnia tego miesiÄ
ca, i uczynili go dniem ucztowania i radoĹci" - KsiÄga Estery z komentarzem Malbima. Fundacja Ronalda S. Laudera. KrakĂłw 2004:84 https://www.linkedin.com/posts/stefankosiewski_anio%C5%82-purym-o-komentarzach-malbima-do-ksi%C4%99gi-activity-7185028229995405314-HMro Wydawca z nieznanych przyczyn ocenzurowaĹ komentarz Malbima, stÄ
d nie ma niestety w nadzwyczaj starannie wydanej KsiÄdze Estery komentarzy Meira Lejbusza ben Jechiela Michaela (Malbima) do dwĂłch nastÄpujÄ
cych po sobie wersetĂłw: [17. i 18.], nie ma uwag rabina, kolejno: we WrzeĹni i KÄpnie w Prusiech, Chersoniu i Mohylewie w Imperium Rosyjskim; skazanego za szpiegostwo w Bukareszcie na ĹmierÄ, ze zamianÄ
potem na wygnanie 1864 r. Tak samo wyrzuconego nastÄpnie w Mohylewie z granic Imperium Rosyjskiego, znowu na skutek dziaĹaĹ jego Ĺźydowskich wrogĂłw religijnych. Wydawca polskiego tĹumaczenia ksiÄ
Ĺźki ISBN 83-920213-1-2 wydania pierwszego z marca 2004 - miesiÄ
ca adar 5764 Stowarzyszenie Pardes ul. StarowiĹlna 28/8 31-032 KrakĂłw zastrzegĹ sobie: "KsiÄ
Ĺźka ani Ĺźadna jej czÄĹÄ nie moĹźe byÄ przedrukowywana ani w jakikolwiek sposĂłb reprodukowana czy powielana mechanicznie, fotooptycznie, zapisywana elektronicznie lub magnetycznie ani odczytywana w Ĺrodkach publicznego przekazu bez pisemnej zgody wydawcy. Dlatego jeno eksplikacja niniejsza, z naukowego punktu widzenia 13 kwietnia 2024: Ad. 17.: ZapytaÄ moĹźemy [email protected] w tym miejscu, czy Malbim nie wyjaĹniĹ moĹźe, dlaczego 75 tys. tych, ktĂłrzy "nienawidzili ĹťydĂłw" nie zabiĹo ich wczeĹniej i nie siÄgnÄĹo przed 13 dniem albo i 13-go dnia miesiÄ
ca adar po majÄ
tek nie pomordowanych z nienawiĹci ĹťydĂłw? Ad. 18.: Z niezaleĹźnego punktu widzenia nauk wielu (np.: logika matematyczna, lingwistyka, historia antyczna, prakseologia etc.) istotniejsze sÄ
- obecne wszak w ksiÄ
Ĺźce numerycznie na str. 84., natomiast nieobecne sÄ
tekstowo we wydanej po polsku Megilat Ester, rabinackie odniesienia Malbima do nielogicznych obiektywnie zaprzeczeĹ w tekĹcie, sprzecznych ze sobÄ
dosĹownie z kaĹźdego punktu widzenia i myĹlenia, tzn. niezaleĹźnie od tego, jakby na to (i kto by tylko) nie popatrzyĹ: Otóş, daje siÄ niniejszym do rozwaĹźenia warsztatowego: - Dlaczego we wersecie 9:17 napisano, iĹź "(byĹo to) w trzynastym dniu miesiÄ
ca adar. I odetchnÄli czternastego dnia, i uczynili go dniem ĹwiÄtowania i radoĹci" KsiÄga Estery 2004:84 JeĹźeli w nastÄpnym wersie 9:18 napisano: "A Ĺťydzi, ktĂłrzy byli w Szuszan, zebrali siÄ trzynastego i czternastego dnia tego miesiÄ
ca i odetchnÄli piÄtnastego dnia tego miesiÄ
ca, i uczynili go dniem ucztowania i radoĹci". KiedyĹź to w koĹcu Ĺťydzi odetchnÄli w KsiÄdze Ester? Czternastego, czy piÄtnastego dnia miesiÄ
ca adar? JeĹźeli czternastego dnia miesiÄ
ca adar Ĺťydzi juĹź odpoczywali i radowali siÄ, to kto zabiĹ tego samego w Szuszan trzystu ludzi z innych narodĂłw? Kto w takim razie zabiĹ podczas, kiedy Ĺźydzi ucztowali i radowali siÄ - tego samego czternastego dnia miesiÄ
ca adar - siedemdziesiÄ
t piÄÄ tysiÄcy ludzi w innych krajach krĂłla perskiego? MoĹźe znowu AnioĹ, jak w Egipcie? AnioĹ Purym? Dla celĂłw obiektywnego postÄpowania dowodowego chociaĹźby w Parlamencie Europejskim, gdzie za sĹupa odpowiedzialnego za walkÄ z mowÄ
nienawiĹci robi wdowa po "Budyniu", skremowanym prezydencie GdaĹska Adamowiczu, z domu Abramska, sporzÄ
dziliĹmy wiernÄ
fotkÄ strony bezboĹźnej ksiÄ
Ĺźki (KsiÄga Estery ani razu nie nazywa Ĺźadnym sĹowem Boga, nie nazwany jest w niej Nieobecny!). Niereligijne ĹwiÄto Purim/ Purym, drugie obok Chanuki w Sejmie tzw. Polski po Magdalence '89, nie ma absolutnie nic wspĂłlnego z TorÄ
czy religiÄ
ĹźydowskÄ
. Jest dorocznÄ
okazjÄ
do rozpasanego ucztowania i radowania siÄ zĹoczyĹcĂłw z powodu cudzej, masowej Ĺmierci (Hamana, dziesiÄciu jego synĂłw, trzystu ludzi zamordowanych z nienawiĹci w Szuszan, siedemdziesiÄciu piÄciu tysiÄcy zamordowanych w innych krajach perskiego krĂłla Achaszwerosza (Ahasureus, Aswerus, Kserkses I) itd., etc. RadoĹÄ to z LudobĂłjstwa zaiste! 14 dnia adar "po poĹudniu spoĹźywany jest specjalny posiĹek, podczas ktĂłrego naduĹźywanie alkoholu (adlojada) jest traktowane jako micwa (religijny obowiÄ
zek) jak powiada Wikipedia za: ÂťChabad-Lubawicz: Przewodnik purimowy â Jedzenie, picie i radowanie siÄÂŤ. https://web.archive.org/web/20160611051139/http://www.chabadkrakow.pl/templates/articlecco_cdo/aid/948202/jewish/Przewodnik-purimowy.htm https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purim#cite_note-Przewodnik-17 "Adlojada (aram. ×˘× ××× ××ע ad lo jada, jid. adlojade = âaĹź nie bÄdzie wiedziaĹâ) â purimowa parada, ktĂłrej nazwa wywodzi siÄ z talmudycznego zalecenia, by biesiadowaÄ w Purim aĹź do momentu, gdy stan upojenia alkoholem nie pozwoli biesiadujÄ
cemu rozróşniÄ âbĹogosĹawienia Mordechajaâ (×ר×× ×ר××× baruch Mordechaj) od âprzeklinania Hamanaâ (×ר×ר ××× arur Haman). WartoĹÄ liczbowa obu stwierdzeĹ wynosi 502[1]. Pierwsza adlojada odbyĹa siÄ w Tel Awiwie w 1912 r." pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adlojada Odpoczywali, ucztowali i radowali siÄ do upadĹego raczÄ
c siÄ alkoholem, czy teĹź trudzili siÄ mordowaniem czternastego dnia miesiÄ
ca adar? Shalom, szalom! Audio: https://gloria.tv/post/3X3QgkCjCuiFBKnAzZ7b6Dz1N
0 notes
Text
The Talmud (Bava Batra 91a) states that Abraham was world-famous for being an unparalleled astrologer and healer. According to tradition, he was also a great mystic. It is believed that he authored, or in some other way originated, Sefer Yetzirah, the âBook of Formationâ, one of the most ancient Kabbalistic text. The book explains how God fashioned the universe through the Hebrew letters. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 67a) suggests that mastery of this text would allow the mystic to create ex nihilo, out of nothing, and such was done by Rav Oshaya and Rav Chanina every Friday afternoon. These two rabbis would create a chunk of veal, and make a barbecue! It appears the same was done by Abraham. We read in Genesis 18:7 that when the angels visited him, Abraham hastened to âmakeâ a calf, vâimaher laâasot oto. The Malbim (Rabbi Meir Leibush Wisser, 1809-1879) comments on the Torahâs strange choice of verb by stating that Abraham literally created a calf through the wisdom of Sefer Yetzirah. This is why, he explains, the next verse has Abraham serving butter and milk. It is unthinkable that Abraham would serve veal with dairyâan explicit Torah prohibitionâunless the veal was of his own creation, and was therefore not real meat that once had a soul. Abraham may have been the first person to serve vegan burgers.
I know Things Just Be Happenin in the Bible is not a hot take by any stretch but Things Really Do Just Be Happening. By the way, this is what Sanhedrin 67a says:
Abaye elaborates: One who performs a real act of sorcery is liable to be executed by stoning. One who deceives the eyes is exempt from punishment, but it is prohibited for him to do so. What is permitted ab initio is to act like Rav Ḥanina and Rav Oshaya: Every Shabbat eve they would engage in the study of the halakhot of creation, and a third-born calf would be created for them, and they would eat it in honor of Shabbat.
1 note
¡
View note
Text
A Glossary of Yiddish and Hebrew Words This Rabbi Uses You Might Not Know:
(Iâll transcribe closer to the accent heâs using than âstandardâ Israeli pronunciation, to make this easier. Not going to translate things he translates himself, for the most part, but erring on the side of over-explaining.
Iâm mostly not going to bother with things I translated in a previous chapter.)
Meraglim: Spies, scouts
Rachav: Rahab
Yericho: Jericho
Aveilus: Mourning, mourning period.
Parshat Shlach: A weekly portion of the 5 Books (a parsha), covering Number 13:1-15:41. Includes the story of the 12 spies Moshe sent, which went Poorly. Tldr, ten of them said the land was full of giants and was terrifying and freaked out the people so much that they lost faith. This was part of the reason we ended up wandering for 40 years instead of going straight to Israel. Of that entire generation (of men, anyway), only the two who didnât fearmonger were able to enter the land--Yehoshua was one, the other was Kalev (Caleb) ben Yefuneh, the husband of Miriam. You should probably read that story to fully understand the parallels to this one.
Al pi: At the request of, because of, based on.
Shlichus: Mission, task. A person sent on shichus is a shaliach (f. shlicha, m.p. shluchim), usually translated as emissary. You might have heard this word used in relation to Chabad couples.
Pinchas: Phineas, the grandson of Aharon (Aaron), and High Priest after the death of his father. Midrash identifies him as one of these two spies, with the other again being Kalev ben Yefuneh.
Rus HaMoaviah: Ruth the Moabite
Giores: Convert (feminine). Masculine form is ger.
BaâLaila: At night
Vâheimah terem yishkâvun: And before they were asleep (beginning of verse 8).
Yetzias Mitzrayim: The Exodus from Egypt
Aleinu: A prayer said at the end of just about every prayer service. The first paragraph ends with a quote from Deuteronomy 4:39: âKnow therefore this day and keep in mind that Hashem alone is God in heaven above and on earth below; there is no other.â
Chesed (pl. chasadim): Often translated as âlovingkindness.â Kind of a complicated thing to translate. Honestly the Wikipedia entry isnât a terrible explanation. The general gist is something kind or charitable.
Siman: Sign
Os: Symbol
Shiur: Lecture, generally religious.
Bonus I thought about doing last time, but didnât:
Commentaries Mentioned:
Note commentators are often referred to either by an acronym of their name or by the title of their most famous work.
Rashi: Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, France, 1040-1104. Probably the most referenced commentator, tends to be easy to understand and follow. If you have a question about something, heâs usually the first place you look for an answer.
Malbim: Meir Loeb ben Yehiel Michel Wisser, Russian Empire, 1809-1879.
Nechama Leibowitz: Israel, 1905-1997. One of the premier modern commentator, and perhaps the best known female commentator. (Sheâs so cool.)
Daâas Sofrim: Rabbi Chaim Dov Rabinowitz, Lithuania and Israel, 1909-2001.
Day 2: Joshua 2 // ×××׊ע ×
(Link to full chapter text on Sefaria)
I started working on this draft motzei Shabbos because I was so excited about this particular chapter, but I waited because I wanted to really get my thoughts right. So!
One of the reasons I wanted to start by reading Joshua rather than track the OU cycle (which is currently in the middle of Psalms/Tehillim) is because I absolutely love the character Rahab (/Rachav). Rahab is explicitly described as being a prostitute, and yet the text itself doesn't condemn her for it or try to whitewash it. She is described by her occupation multiple times, and her and her family are spared because of her intuition and bravery in facilitating the Israelite conquest of the city. Like Tamar in Bereshit, the future of the people hinges on the goodness of foreign women (likely converts or their historical equivalent) who engage in commercial sex. In Joshua it's even clearer - she and her family were said to be adopted into the people Israel and she is still described as a prostitute; unlike Tamar (which is a one-time exceptional circumstance that the text is clear did not recur) there is not explicit statement that she renounces this work.
This moment is also a moving reversal of the mistakes of the Israelites during the original spies narrative in the Torah. Notably, Joshua was one of the only two spies (along with Caleb) who tried to convince the people to fight for the land, while the remaining ten instill fear into the people, such that the generation that left Egypt is then doomed to die in the desert before the people can literally and figuratively move forward. Here, the spies sent are fewer in number and chosen by Joshua who, certainly, must be remembering his own experiences as a young man. By having a successful reconnaissance mission, the people are demonstrating the nation's collective teshuva for the sin of the original spies and the peopleâs reaction to them, and their readiness to enter the land.
The book of Joshua taken as a whole is very focused on the conquest of the land, the various cities that are razed and burned to the ground, and the many people and clans slaughtered. It's a tough book for those of us who oppose war for land or prosperity and care about human rights. But the acceptance of Rahab is a bright spot in a grisly war narrative.
21 notes
¡
View notes
Link
Don Seeman
In 1845, Rabbi Meir Leibush ben Yehiel Mikhel Wisser, better known by his acronym and nom de plume âMalbim,â published his first biblical commentary, on Megillat Esther. Malbim is often characterized as a conservative commentator who defended traditional rabbinic exegesis and the sanctity of biblical texts. Yet his underappreciated commentary on Esther also contains the seeds of a radical political hermeneutic that might even be described as âproto-feministâ because it explores the political roots and consequences of womenâs oppression. We are used to thinking of Esther as a heroine who saved her people, but Malbimâs analysis goes beyond the role of any individual person to describe how it was, in his view, that the systematic disempowerment of women in general helped to create the political conditions for genocide in Megillat Esther. This is a shockingly modern sort of analysis for a commentator better known for his fierce opposition to religious reform in the lands he served as rabbi.
For Malbim, the mise en scene of Esther is Ahasuerusâ meteoric rise to power and the political intrigue that would have accompanied such an upheaval. He notes, for example, that the biblical story begins just three years into Ahasuerusâ reign, when he still would have been consolidating power, and cites a midrash that portrays Ahasuerus as a commoner who seized power.[1] This is not historical research. Instead, it is a form of biblical interpretation grounded in rabbinic exegesis and it needs to be appreciated in that vein.
Crucially for his account of gender politics in this book, Malbim adopts a midrash that portrays Vashti as a daughter of the supplanted royal house, suggesting that her marriage to Ahasuerus would have been a political matter contributing to the legitimacy of his new regime.[2] This in fact is the heart of the story that Malbim wishes to tell, because it helps to make sense of the first two chapters of the book whose proliferation of details about drinking and life in the capital might otherwise have seemed superfluous. For Malbim, Ahasuerusâ political dependence on his wife sets up a dynamic of murderous intrigue that reverberates through the book.
Political Prologue: âItâs Good to be the King!â
In his somewhat lengthy prologue to the commentary, Malbim elaborates on two broad theories of government that would have been very familiar to his nineteenth century readers. In a limited or constitutional monarchy, he writes, royal power is constrained by law and by a conception of the common good. Sometimes the king even needs to demonstrate that he has received the consent of the governed. Not so the absolute or unlimited monarch, who rules by fiat as both lawgiver and king simultaneously. In Malbimâs accountâwhich he tries to illustrate through close reading of biblical and rabbinic textsâAhasuerus seized power from a constitutional monarch but was set on absolutizing his rule through a series of very intentional stratagems that required him to sideline or eliminate his wife. Faced by the ancient rabbinic conundrum whether to portray Ahasuerus as a wise or a foolish king, Malbim decides from the outset to treat him as someone who knows what he wants and works deliberately to achieve his goals.[3] Â Â Â
This kind of excursus in political philosophy is unusual among rabbinic commentators, but it is crucial to Malbimâs methodology, lending vital context to the plethora of small details on which he builds his interpretation. Why, for example, would Scripture devote so much attention to the lavish parties Ahasuerus held for his servants and subordinates throughout the whole third year of his reign? Malbimâs answer is that no mere constitutional monarch could have opened the state coffers so brazenly for his own aggrandizement. Ahasuerus understood that people would be less likely to object to the precedent he was trying to set if they were included among its early beneficiaries.[4]
Why specify, furthermore, that Ahasuerus had invited three distinct groups to these parties: the nobles and princes of Persia, the nobles of the (conquered) provinces and ultimately âall the people who were present in Shushan the palace, both great and small?â[5] As a commoner who had seized power in a large and centralized empire, Ahasuerus wanted to signal that the traditional Persian elites (who would have been most likely to challenge the legitimacy of his rule) had no more access to him than anyone else. Extending invitations to lowly servants conveyed to Ahasuerusâ more privileged guests that âboth great and small are equal before him for all are [merely] his servants.â[6]
This flattening of the political structure may not have immediately weakened the Persian nobility but it would have stoked the fires of a fiercely populistic loyalty to the new king among the leaders of the disenfranchised, non-Persian provinces and the lower Persian classes who had been systematically excluded from most of the benefits of the constitutionalâbut colonial and deeply class consciousâstate Ahasuerus had come to dominate. Â Â Â Â
Malbim certainly gives signs in his commentary of a preference for constitutional monarchy, yet he implicitly lays the groundwork for a critique of both constitutional and authoritarian regimes. Ahasuerusâ attention to the provinces and to the servant class of Shushan could not have been successful unless there were already deep reservoirs of disaffection throughout the empire. Malbim never says this in so many words, but the pretense of a state governed by law for the common good may not have appealed so much to the provincial nobles chafing under imperial rule or the underclass of Shushan whom Ahasuerus had been so careful to flatter. Malbimâs deep personal intuition for the workings of power in social contexts makes him a profound commentator on a book devoted to the intrigues of a royal court, but these same intuitions sometimes seem to outstrip his commitment to critical analysis of the world beyond the text.
Every Man Should be Master in his Own House: On Misogyny and Power
Vashti, we have seen, poses a special problem for Ahasuerus. She is at once the key to his legitimacy in the eyes of the traditional Persian elites and the most distressing evidence that his independent power is limited. So, at the end of his long populist campaign, when his heart was âmerry with wine,â Ahasuerus cleverly sends his chamberlains to summon the queen.[7] Sending his own servants rather than those who normally attend upon her was meant, in Malbimâs reading, to signal his disrespect. If she answered his call it would be a symbolic victory for him and if she refused it might present him with an opportunity to move against her. Directly attacking her dignity as the daughter of a royal house, he he also summons her âto show the people and the princes her beauty,â as if her attractiveness outstripped the importance of her royal person and pedigree.[8] By demanding that she appear wearing her royal crown, according to one well-known midrash, the king went so far as to intimate that she should appear before the gaze of his servants, dressed in nothing else.[9]
Malbim pointedly ignores several popular midrashim that attribute Vashtiâs refusal of the kingâs summons to mere vanity because she had developed a skin disease or even (miraculously) grown a tail.[10] I consider it a scandal of Jewish education that these fanciful midrashim belittling Vashti are often the only ones taught to children, while more substantive readings like Malbimâs are ignored. Ever the close reader, Malbim notes that Ahasuerus called for âVashti the Queen,â putting her private name first to emphasize that her status was derived from marriage to him while she responds as âQueen Vashti,â emphasizing that her own rank came first.[11] Read this way, her refusal of the kingâs summons constitutes a self-conscious act of political resistance because she understood what her husband was trying to accomplish at her expense.
Baiting Vashti in this way would have been a dangerous strategy for Ahasuerus because the Persian nobility was likely to side with her in any serious dispute. Malbim thinks that Ahasuerus still loved her and did not wish her condemned to death but that his advisor Memukhan ultimately prevailed with the argument that Vashtiâs public challenge had to be treated as an offense of the state if Ahasuerusâ plans for unlimited government were ever to be achieved.[12] Her offense should not, moreover, be framed in the context of Ahasuerusâ political struggle with the last remaining representative of the old royal house but as a womanâs rebellion against her husband, thus implicating every man in the desire to see her put in her place. Ahasuerusâ cabinet would have to work quickly, because Malbim assumes that both Vashti and the Persian noblewomen with whom she had feasted had already seen through this subterfuge and might work to subvert it.[13] So they released a royal edict banning her from the kingâs presence almost immediately before following up with seemingly unrelated letters âto every province according to its writing and to every people according to their language that every man should be master in his own house and speak according to the language of his people.â[14]
On the level of political rhetoric, Ahasuerusâ executive order must have seemed a master stroke because of all that it simultaneously accomplished. Malbim thinks that by emphasizing that the letters were to be sent in the diverse languages of the polyglot empire, Ahasuerus was once again stoking popular resentment against the Persian elites who used to demand that all state business be conducted in Persian.[15]Apparently, âcultural diversityâ can be coopted by authoritarian state power as easily as any other ideology under the right circumstances. More importantly, Ahasuerusâ letter would have distracted people from his naked power grab by disguising it as the utterly ordinary resentment of a husband whose wife has defied him, guaranteeing the support of other men who feared the rebellion of their own wives in turn. Could he have found a more potent strategy for harnessing their resentment? In the 1970âs it began to be said in some quarters that âthe personal is political,â but Ahasuerusâ letters represent the utter suppression of that frame by insisting that the political is merely personal. Whether or not she was finally executedâas Malbim assumesâVashtiâs resistance had been nullified.
On Purim and Genocide
One of the extraordinary features of Malbimâs commentary is how little it initially focuses on the fate of the Jews. For Malbim, that fate rested not just on divine providence but on an exceedingly subtle reading of contemporary events by social actors holding a wide a variety of different political aspirations. Ahasuerus had no particular brief against the Jews, according to Malbim, but was ultimately manipulated by his advisor Haman the Amalekite, who bore Mordekhai a personal and hereditary grudge. Without mentioning who the targets of his wrath would be, Haman tells the king that âthere is a certain [unnamed] people scattered abroad and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of your kingdom . . . who follow their own laws and do not obey the king.â[16] Haman convinces Ahasuerus that extermination of the Jews will be welcomed by all the nations of the empire whose support he has been seeking. Driven by hatred rather than financial gain, Haman even offers to fill the kingâs coffers with the Jewsâ money rather than keeping it for himself.
Astoundingly, Ahasuerus turns down Hamanâs offer of booty because his own intentions at this point are merely to âimprove his nation by destroying the harmful religion and its vices.â[17] One may easily perceive here an echo of Malbimâs critique of reformers and state agents in his own day who claimed to be interested in public morality or âprogressâ but whose efforts were often construed by traditionalists as efforts to assimilate or destroy the Jewish people.[18] Be that as it may, Ahasuerus ultimately accedes to Hamanâs request and once more sends letters throughout the land allowing the Jews to be exterminated.[19] Later, when Esther intervenes with the king on her peopleâs behalf yet a third group of letters must be sent, giving the Jews the right to bear arms in self-defense.[20]
So where does this leave us? A curious Talmudic text suggests that âhad it not been for the first set of lettersâ in Megillat Esther âno remnant or remainder of the Jews would have survived.â[21] As Rashi glosses, the âfirst set of lettersâ refers to the one that mandated male control of the household in the first chapter of Esther. The rule that every man should âspeak the language of his own peopleâ is taken to mean that women who marry a man from a different ethnic or linguistic group than their own must limit themselves to speaking in their husbandsâ language.[22] But such a decree was so clearly daft and unenforceable that it cast all of the kingâs subsequent decrees into disrepute.[23] When the letter about exterminating the Jews later arrived, most people dismissed it as another laughable farce, and this allowed the Jews to mount a successful defense against the relatively few who did attack them.
Malbim and a few other interpreters have a different reading, whose direct source in rabbinic literature (if there is one) I have not yet been able to identify. Malbimâs version, which he attributes without specific citation to âour sagesâ reads âif it were not for the first set of letters, the second set could never have been fulfilled.â[24] On this reading, the second set of letters were the ones permitting the extermination of the Jews, and the meaning is that Haman could never have conspired to kill the Jews in a constitutional monarchy.[25] The first set of letters disempowering women paved the way for Ahasuerus to become an absolute monarch and it was only under those conditions that a genocide of the kind Haman plotted could ever have a chance to succeed. To put it simply, the murder of Vashti and the suppression of women throughout the empire paved the way for Hamanâs projected Holocaust.
Though this is bound to be provocative, I have referred to Malbimâs commentary on Esther as proto-feminist for a few reasons. First, because this commentary demonstrates how the systematic domination of women served broader imperial interests and was also enhanced by blurring the relation between patriarchal domination of households and despotic domination of the empire. Under Ahasuerus, women (starting with Vashti) had to be controlled or neutralized so that the household could serve as a model for the state, even while the state claimed to be modeled on the structure of households. This sort of mutually reinforcing dynamic or political cosmology is by now a commonplace of social analysis, but it wasnât in 1845.[26]
Malbim shows, moreover, that the political project of misogyny formed a necessary prelude to authoritarian rule and genocide. Jews reflecting on Purim ought to reflect as well on the ways in which the fate of the Jews cannot help but be embedded in larger structures of power that also determine the fates of other groups, including women and all those other peoples (some of them also quite vulnerable) who also inhabit our necessarily imperfect political regimes. Though the Megillah and its commentators certainly assume a transcendent significance to the travails of Israel, a reader shaped by Malbimâs commentary would also have to conclude that those travails can only be understood by reference to a much broader canvas of interlocking stories, political calculations, and tribulations suffered by others. âWithout the first set of letters,â Malbim reminds us, âthe second set of letters could never have been fulfilled.â
Concluding Thoughts
Malbimâs interests in the commentary on Esther bear witness more to his thoughtfulness as a reader than to any explicit political project, and that is why I only referred to his commentary, in all fairness, as proto-feminist. I do not mean to imply that he would himself have subscribed to any of the much later developments in feminist thought or practice, including those that seem to be at issue in contemporary Orthodox Jewish life. Given his attitude toward Reform in his own day, it would be odd to portray him as a hero of religious reforms in ours. But this is actually one of the reasons that his commentary on Esther is so profoundly unsettling. He isnât trying to sell anything but a better reading, grounded in rabbinic sources, and a more nuanced appreciation for the dynamics of power. The fact that this leads him to an unprecedented analysis of gender politics in Scripture tells me that this is a discussion we ought to be having no matter what our stance on hot-button contemporary issues might be. At the very least, it will make us better students of Torah.
This is not a small thing. Does the fact that Malbim presaged later developments in gender theory and linked his observations about gender and politics to Scriptural interpretation mean that we can begin to have non-defensive conversations about these matters in religious settings? That our sons and daughters might be able to confront the complex realities of power in their own lives as well as Tanakh rather than focusing almost exclusively on fanciful midrashim about Vashtiâs physical deformities? Â Or that we might recapture the importance of political philosophy to almost any kind of intelligible conversation about sacred Scripture? That may be a lot to rest on the back of one short commentary on a biblical book, but I am hardly deterred. Purim, after all, is a holiday of miracles.
Malbim learned about the dynamics of power on his own flesh in the decades following the publication of his commentary on Esther.[27] In 1859 he became chief rabbi of Bucharest in Romania but was denounced as an enemy of the state because of his fierce opposition to various reforms and assimilationist policies. Moses Montefiore intervened to save him from being sent to prison but he was exiled and forced to seek redress from the Turkish government in Constantinople. He spent the remaining twenty years of his life embroiled in controversies with reformers and state authorities in a variety of cities across Europe and finally died in 1879 while traveling to assume a new rabbinical post. A committed traditionalist of deep learning and broad intellectual horizons, Malbim can be read with profit today not just for the specific positions he took (these are inextricably tied to his time and circumstances) but for the habits of mind and spirit that writings like his commentary on Esther exemplify. Within a traditional frame, he sought more complex and contextually coherent understandings of Jewish literature and Jewish life. At a moment when many are struggling with renewed passion to comprehend the intersection of different potential forms of oppression (racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny) and also questioning the forms of political discourse in which more constitutional or more authoritarian trends might come to the fore of our national life, Malbim should be on the curriculum.
[1] See Esther 1:3; Esther Rabbah 1:4.
[2] See, for example, Esther Rabbah 3:14.
[3] See Megillah 12a.
[4] Malbim on Esther 1:4.
[5] Esther 1: 5.
[6] See Esther 1:3-5.
[7] Esther 1: 10-11.
[8] Esther 1: 11; Esther Rabbah 3: 14.
[9] Esther Rabbah 3: 13-14.
[10] See Megillah 12b.
[11] See Malbim on Esther 1: 9.
[12] Malbim on Esther 1: 16.
[13] See Esther 1:9 and Malbim on Esther 1: 17.
[14] Esther 1: 19-22.
[15] Malbim on Esther 1: 22.
[16] Esther 3: 8.
[17] See Esther 3: 11, in which the king gives Haman the treasure to do with as he sees fit, as well as Malbimâs comment on that verse.
[18] Malbim would not have been alone in that regard. See for example Barukh Halevy Epsteinâs account of rabbinic interactions with the Jewish reformer, Rabbi Max Lilienthal, in his memoir Mekor Barukh: Zikhronot Me-Hayyei Ha-Dor Ha-Kodem Vol. IV, chs. 43-44 (Vilna: Rom Publishers, 1928), 1850-1927. For an analysis of this and other relevant sources, see Don Seeman and Rebecca Kobrin, ââLike One of the Whole Menâ: Learning, Gender and Autobiography in R. Barukh Epsteinâs Mekor Barukh,â Nashim 2 (1999): 59-64.
[19] Esther 3: 12-14.
[20] Esther 8: 10-14.
[21] Megillah 12b; also see Pesikta Zutrata (Lekah Tov) Esther 1:22.
[22] Rashi on Esther 1: 22. See similarly Hakhmei Zarfat cited on the same verse in Torat Hayyim: Megillat Esther âim Perushei Ha-Rishonim (Jerusalem: Mossad Ha-Rav Kook, 2006), 48. See Esther Rabbah 4: 12 and additional sources cited by Torah Shelemah Megilat Esther (Jerusalem: Noam Aharon Publishers, 1994), 50n.187.
[23] See Rashi to Megillah 12b s.v. Iggerot Rishonot.
[24] Malbim to Esther 1:22
[25] Ibid.
[26] For a few ethnographic treatments of the relationship between cosmologies of gender and state regimes, see, for example, Carol Delaney, The Seed and the Soil: Gender and Cosmology in Turkish Village Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991); Sally Cole, Women of the Praia: Work and Lives in a Portuguese Coastal Community (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991); Rebecca J. Lester, Jesus in our Wombs: Embodying Modernity in a Mexican Convent  (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005).
[27] See Yehoshua Horowitzâs  entry on Malbim in Encyclopedia Judaica Vol. XI (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing, 1971), 822-23.
8 notes
¡
View notes
Text
i love reading books w annotations btw i lovvvve my mom's copy of the annotated alice and my copy of hard times w footnotes and i used to have a copy of romeo and juliet with explanations..... i love it its like reading two books at once
#all my teachers from elementary school materialize to yell WHERE WAS THIS ENERGY FOR RASHI MALBIM ETC ETC#well. thats difficult.#textie#bloggers rejoice! local fever reduces somewhat
9 notes
¡
View notes
Text
keske boyle bi seyler olsa da kalbim malbim pitpit etse
85 notes
¡
View notes
Text
Nineteenth century Catholic commentator George Leo Haydock wrote:
As God does not here express leave to eat flesh-eating meat, which He did after the Deluge, it is supposed that the more religious part of mankind, at least, abstained from it, and from wine, till after that event, when they became more necessary to support decayed nature.
Gregory of Nyssa, writing in the late fourth century, wrote:
The Lord, after the flood, knowing humans were wasteful, allowed them to use all foods.
Giovanni Menochio, a sixteenth century Jesuit, wrote:
Now, the salt waters of the deluge had vitiated the earth, its plants were no longer so nutritive.
In all three cases, there is an understanding that in their original state, human beings were meant to be vegetarians; that the allowance for meat was a concession, the result of a weakened human condition and a weakened vitality within Creation itself. There are some, like myself, who see vegetarianism as what is known as an âeschatological signâ - a way of living on this earth in a way that is not mandatory for all believers, but who nonetheless see it as a way of more closely resembling what we will be like in heaven. There are others who wouldnât grant it such an exalted status. There are other opinions, though. For example, the Rabbi David Kimhi (or RaDaK, as he is sometimes called), was an eleventh century Jewish scholar who instead suggested:
Perhaps [...] permission to eat meat became part of Noach's reward for his labor feeding all the animals in the ark for a full year.
Hezekiah ben Manoah, from the thirteenth century, uses similar reasoning:
The reason why God permitted eating living creatures after they had been killed was that all of them had to thank man for having kept them from perishing during the Deluge. As a result, all the animals were now totally at the mercy of man.
The eighteenth century Chaim ibn Attar agrees with his coreligionists above in that he also believed that meat-eating was a reward for Noahâs faithful stewardship, whereas the nineteenth century commentator known as the Malbim actually mixed both reasonings:
For in the day of Adam, people's bodies were strong and the fruits had not yet been damaged and they could sustain a person like meat could. But after the Deluge, when food was damaged, and man was to be scattered to the edges of the land and far off isles, [and] at that point hot and cold [weather] were introduced, so meat was needed for the maintenance of his health. [...] Also, after they lived through the actions of Noah who provided for them in the ark, they were like his acquisitions and in his possession.
So among both Jewish and Christian scholars, there is a wide variety of opinions on the matter; meat-eating can be something weâre just putting up with because of the sinful state of the world, or it can be a reward for maintaining the world. I personally think that the first option is more likely, but Christians are free to believe either.
Were humans originally not intended to eat the meat of the animals around them?
In the garden of Eden when God is showing Adam and Eve everything he has given them, there is a section where he discusses that all of the trees and plants (except for the tree of knowledge obviously) were given to them for nourishment.
âAnd God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.â Genesis 1:29
Animals were not mentioned here. However, after the flood, he mentions that the animals also were available for their nourishment.
âEvery moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.â Genesis 9:3
As a first time Bible reader (and a vegetarian) I am curious about these two sections and looking for an explanation if there is one. Why is it that before the flood the animals were not given as food, and after they were? Thanks in advance everyone, I'm just looking to better understand what I am reading.
#vegetarian#eschatological sign#stewardship#Noah's Ark#Original Sin#Saint Gregory of Nyssa#Giovanni Menochio#George Leo Haydock#Malbim
72 notes
¡
View notes
Text
5th portion-Parasha Balak(english)
5th Portion: Bamidbar (Numbers 23:13-26)
Chapter 23
13Balak said to him, "Come with me to another place from where you will see them; however, you will see only a part of them, not all of them and curse them for me from there.
14He took him to the field of the lookouts, to the peak of the mountain, and he built seven altars and offered up a bull and a ram on [each] altar.
15He said to Balak, "Stand here next to your burnt offering and I will be chanced on here.
16The Lord chanced upon Balaam and placed something into his mouth. He said, "Return to Balak and so you shall speak."
17When he came to him, he was standing next to his burnt offering, and the Moabite dignitaries were with him, and Balak said to him, "What did the Lord speak?"
18He took up his parable and said, "Arise, Balak, and hear; listen closely to me, son of Zippor.
19God is not a man that He should lie, nor is He a mortal that He should relent. Would He say and not do, speak and not fulfill?
20I have received [an instruction] to bless, and He has blessed, and I cannot retract it.
21He does not look at evil in Jacob, and has seen no perversity in Israel; the Lord, his God, is with him, and he has the King's friendship.
22God has brought them out of Egypt with the strength of His loftiness.
23For there is no divination in Jacob and no soothsaying in Israel. In time it will be said to Jacob and Israel, 'What has God wrought?'
24Behold, a people that rises like a lioness (See Malbim) and raises itself like a lion. It does not lie down until it eats its prey and drinks the blood of the slain."
25Balak said to Balaam, "You shall neither curse them nor shall you bless them."
26Balaam answered and said to Balak, "Have I not spoken to you, saying, 'Everything the Lord speaks that I shall do."
#parasha balak#torah#shalom#elohim#la torah es vida#hashem#barujhashem#jumblr#latam#blogger#blogging#english post#simchat torah#moshe ravenu#bible reading#bible study#bible verse#bibletruth#old testament#bible#studying the bible#studying the torah#parasha ha shavua#writting#bible blog#blog post
3 notes
¡
View notes
Text
Nos comentĂĄrios de Malbim (1809-1879) sobre os ProvĂŠrbios, aprendemos que um coração puro (lev tahor) capacita o indivĂduo na sua busca pelas verdades espirituais.
#Cabala
#Kabbalah
#Judaismo
#ProvĂŠrbios
#Biblia
#CoraçãoPuro
#Intelecto
#Gloria
#Verdade
#Malbim
#PabloZahav
#EscolaLemida
0 notes
Text
××¤× × ××¤× ×ץ
In my opinion, the liability of the stealing of meat from Bnei Yisraelâs korbanot falls on ××¤× × ××¤× ×ץ, like the ר×××´× says. There was a huge misuse of power, and the corruption in the Beit Hamikdash made the korbanot a disgrace. I think that the excessive greed of ××¤× × and ×¤× ×ץ led them to disregard Hashemâs commandments and the affairs of the Beit Hamikdash. It is not an uncommon occurrence throughout history, within different cultures and nations for leaders to abuse their power and have the people under them carry out unjust actions. In this case, the leaders had their × ×˘×¨×× steal meat from Bnei Yisrael without any regard for what they were supposed to receive and for the order of the ׊××××. Malbim states that the × ×˘×¨×× had the idea to steal, and therefore, the liability was theirs. However, this represents negligence and accepting of bribes from the leaders, as well as greed and and disresepect from the × ×˘×¨××. It was not their place to either take meat for themselves or to attempt to suck up to ××¤× × ××¤× ×ץ through unlawful bribery. Both mefarshim present a dire situation within the Beit Hamikdash, resulting in distrust from Bnei Yisrael. However, I lean more towards the opinion of the ר×××´×, because though this situation is still bad, it at least shows that the corruption was mainly within the leadership and not in the other aspects of the Beit Hamikdash.
2 notes
¡
View notes
Text
Usually I spend the last part of Shabbos at a friendâs house, but her family was out of town this week, so 2 other friends and I decided to try out this shiur that one of their roommates had recommended.
It was...such a disaster, oh my gosh. First of all I was not a fan of the shiur itself. Even though it was an hour+ long, almost nothing of substance was actually said (the woman teaching it kept repeating the same ideas over and over again), and what was said was not at all Torah-based. When it first started we were handed a source sheet with a whole bunch of sources, so I was like, âOh, awesome, this is going to be really text-based!â But she only ended up referencing like 25% of what was on the page max, and she also referenced multiple sources that werenât on the source sheet, but did so in a way that made it sound like more of what she was saying was from a source than Iâm fairly confident actually was, thus falsely legitimizing ideas that she was pulling out of nowhere. This was especially insidious considering that Iâm pretty sure a lot of the people in the room werenât necessarily familiar with the meforshim she was attributing the ideas to, and so wouldnât have been able to realize something was off (e.g. she attributed something to the Malbim, and since my Nach teacher in sem was a big fan, I was able to think, âuh, I really donât think the Malbim would have said more than the very beginning of what just came out of your mouth,â but my 2 friends said afterwards they didnât know who the Malbim was). Basically the gist of the shiur was her trying to reframe the metzoraâs isolation as a cure for that personâs own feelings of alienation, and advocating in general that if something in the Torah makes us uncomfortable (e.g. the idea that someone would ever be publicly shamed even if they did something wrong) we should simply completely reinterpret it in a way that makes us more comfortable instead of truly engaging with it as it is.
Besides all that, the audience was...interesting. Highlights included:
a guy who clearly had a huge beef with Torah Judaism - Iâm not sure how he got to the shiur or why he stayed or how he didnât catch onto the fact that his comments were not appropriate to the audience - who suggested that âclearly we all know that the Torah was written by people, not G-d, over a period of 600 years,â mansplained that the Torah hates women multiple times to an observant Jewish female teacher and a majority observant Jewish female audience, and asked how we know that Miriamâs tzaraâas was really because of the lashon hara she said about Moshe Rabbeinu and not just a natural disease she was coincidentally exposed to at that time
a woman who tried to use the metaphor of a canary in a coal mine but apparently thought that the canary would be flying around freely in the coal mine and would be the first to leave when it was dangerous, instead of being in a cage and being the first to die when it was dangerous, with highly awkward results for her metaphor
âPolitical correctness is my yetzer haraâ
If Iâd been there alone I would have left way earlier but my friends felt too awkward to walk out in the middle because of the way the room was set up. But anyway at least now we know we arenât missing anything by not going to this shiur other weeks......
7 notes
¡
View notes
Text
With this understanding, we can understand that Zechariah describes the gentiles travelling to Yerushalayim on Sukkot as an annual commemoration of the great war of Gog and Magog (see Malbim). Isaiah, in our haftarah, is depicting an altogether different purpose to the monthly pilgrimage. Â It is not a commemoration of a past event, but instead an opportunity to gain inspiration from seeing this new reality of Godâs permanent presence, fully restored, in the Holy Temple.
0 notes
Photo
Kalbim malbim đ
Mens Classic Cars - Mercedes-Benz 300 SL (W198) Gullwing
Most popular fashion blog for Men - Menâs LookBook ÂŽ
1K notes
¡
View notes
Text
â Tizku LeShanim Rabot, Neymot veTovot
...na prĂĄtica!
A GemarĂĄ diz em Massechet Rosh HashanĂĄ, "×× ×Š× × ×Š×¨×Š× ×ת×××ת×, ×תע׊רת ×ץ×פ×" - Se conseguirmos ser humildes e sentir que somos necessitados, implorando a HaShem por ajuda no inĂcio do ano, entĂŁo serĂĄ um ano de bĂŞnção atĂŠ o final do ano.
Como podemos nos fazer sentir necessitados? O Rav Menashe Reisman citou o Sefer Ahavat Shalom, que explica o seguinte: Pedimos a HaShem no Birkat Hamazon, "×× ×××× ××Ş× ×Ş ×׊ר ×××" - que nunca precisemos pedir ajuda a outrem, PorĂŠm o Midrash afirma que HaShem diz que o mundo nĂŁo pode existir sem Tzedakah - "ע××× ××Ą× ××× ×". EntĂŁo, como podemos pedir que as pessoas nunca precisem receber dos outros?
Ele traz do Sefer M'galeh Amukot que a palavra Homem (×××) ĂŠ composta por trĂŞs partes: mĂŁe, pai e Hashem. As palavras hebraicas ×× (Av) e ×× (Em), que significam pai e mĂŁe, tĂŞm o mesmo valor numĂŠrico que ×× (dam) = 44; o Aleph, que equivale a HaShem, vem junto com o ×× para soletrar ××× (adam). Quando Adam HaRishon pecou, HaShem tirou o Aleph de seu nome (××) e ele se tornou apenas "carne e sangue". Parte do nosso Tikun ĂŠ trazer o Aleph de volta, reconhecendo que precisamos de HaShem para tudo o que fizermos.
Portanto, no Birkat Hamazon, nĂŁo estamos pedindo para que nunca ninguĂŠm precise de Tzedakah. Estamos pedindo para que os necessitados nĂŁo recebam seu dinheiro de um ×׊ר ××× - de alguĂŠm que acredite que foi ele quem ganhou o dinheiro, sem a ajuda de HaShem. Este tipo de pessoa, ao dar Tzedakah, sente que estĂĄ se separando de seu dinheiro suado. Ao invĂŠs disso, devemos rezar para que os necessitados recebam o dinheiro de alguĂŠm que saiba que nĂŁo fez nada para produzir este dinheiro; veio apenas por causa da bondade de HaShem. E quando alguĂŠm receber dinheiro de uma pessoa com essa atitude, o dinheiro ĂŠ abençoado. Como diz a GemarĂĄ, aquele que recebeu dinheiro de Avraham Avinu teve bĂŞnção nesse dinheiro.
O que significa ter Brachah no dinheiro? No Bet Yisrael, havia um Kollel que dava aos estudantes a pequena soma de apenas US$ 300 por mĂŞs. Mas cada indivĂduo naquele Kollel sempre teve o que precisava. NĂŁo fazia sentido nos cĂĄlculos no papel, e os prĂłprios alunos nĂŁo conseguiam explicar como estavam sustentando suas famĂlias com tĂŁo pouca quantia. O que realmente estava acontecendo? Havia Brachah no dinheiro. Porque os doadores eram puros, entendendo que o dinheiro era de HaShem e que eles tinham muita sorte de ter o mĂŠrito de estar entre aqueles que doam.
Os grandes nomes da nossa histĂłria obtiveram constantemente grande Chizuk nesta ĂĄrea. Quando Avraham Avinu derrotou os quatro reis, disse ao rei de Sodom: "×ר××××Ş× ××× ×× × '×§× ×˘××××" - âEu levantei minhas mĂŁos para HaShemâ; o Malbim explica que Avraham apontou para suas mĂŁos e disse: "Eu nĂŁo quero tirar proveito do dinheiro provindo dos espĂłlios dessa guerra, pois nĂŁo quero pensar que sĂŁo essas mĂŁos que obtiveram meu dinheiroâ. Este ĂŠ um nĂvel muito alto. Avraham Avinu estava com medo de que o Rei de Sodom pudesse pensar que o poder de suas mĂŁos lhe rendera seu dinheiro, entĂŁo ele nĂŁo aceitou.
Quando fazemos Tefilah, o Shulchan Aruch diz que devemos colocar nossas mãos sobre nosso coração, a direita por cima da esquerda, como se dissÊssemos: "Nossas mãos estão atadas", simbolizando que não podemos fazer nada sem HaShem. à assim que devemos nos sentir quando rezamos; somos muito impotentes, não importando quanto dinheiro tenhamos em nossas contas bancårias.
Havia um grande Rebe, Rav Yaakov Koppel Chassid, dono de uma loja. Sempre que os clientes lhe pediam o preço de algum artigo, ele cobria os olhos e dizia "׊××××Ş× × '×× ××× ×Ş×××" - HaShem estĂĄ no comando. SĂł entĂŁo ele lhes dizia o preço. Os clientes pensavam que ele era louco, mas ele obteve muito sucesso. Ele explicou: "Quando sentimos que estamos ganhando dinheiro? Quando compramos algo por US$ 100 e o vendemos por US$ 200. EntĂŁo, nesse momento, quando me perguntam o preço, eu me recordo: tudo vem de HaShem.
Existem diferentes nĂveis de humildade. Algumas pessoas reconhecem que HaShem estĂĄ envolvido e dizem: "Por favor, HaShem, me ajude a continuar administrando os negĂłcios do jeito que eu tenho feito". Mas o nĂvel mais alto ĂŠ a pessoa dizer: "NĂŁo ĂŠ que eu esteja fazendo algo, e Ele esteja me ajudando, mas sim, Ele estĂĄ fazendo tudo, e eu sou apenas um fantoche. Ele coloca as idĂŠias em meu cĂŠrebro; Ele me conduz para encontrar a mercadoria; Ele me traz os clientes; Ele deixa os itens serem aprovados aos olhos deles".
Se alguÊm chegar a essa conclusão, serå capaz de dar Tzedakah com um coração feliz, agradecendo HaShem por ter lhe dado a oportunidade. AlÊm disso, poderå rezar como um necessitado, pois sabe que na realidade Ê isto o que ele Ê. E B'ezrat Hashem, tendo esses pensamentos agora, nestes momentos especiais, nos darå o mÊrito de ter um ano de abundância.
×× × ××ר ×××¨×Ş× ×ת ׊×× : " × × × " !
× × × × ×× × ××× ×××××
פתק
0 notes