אִם יִרְצֶה הַשֵּׁם
כ״ד חֶשְׁוָן תשפ״ז
The sugya is Sanhedrin 100a. On 99b: The regular wife.
Neither post nor transcript has been reviewed by Rav Avigdor Miller zt"l nor the Toras Avigdor organization.
He called him Elisha
Es Hashem Elokecha tira.
One who calls his rebbe by name is apikores, even when the rebbe is not in the room. The verse includes fear of talmidei chachamim.
Rav Miller zt"l: Gechazi was punished for this. Elisha refused Naaman's gifts after the nes: the miracle. Gechazi later took payment in the navi's name, was dismissed, and became a metzora: stricken with tzaraas. Using the master's name for the gifts was already disrespect. It was chillul Hashem.
Later he stood before the king: this is the woman and this is her son whom Elisha revived. He said the name. That line made visible a flaw that had already been present when he used the name for money.
Yashar
HaKadosh Baruch Hu is destined to bring forth a stream from the place of the Kodesh HaKodashim.
R Yirmiya sat before R Zeira and said it. The stone on Har HaBayis will split and a fountain will issue. On its banks every fruit tree will grow; new fruit every month; the fruit for eating and the leaves for terufah: healing.
An old man said yashar: more strength to you. R Zeira said that such agreement looks like apikorsut. Who asked him for his approbation? He sets himself up as a judge. If he brings a supporting verse, the difficulty is gone.
One Amora: le-hatir peh shel ilmin and le-hatir peh shel akarot: to open the mouth of the mute and the orifice of barren women. R Yochanan: a real remedy. R Shmuel bar Nachmani: le-ta'er panim shel ba'alei ha-peh: to brighten the countenances of those who labor with their mouths in Torah, so the world will recognize the poor talmidei chachamim. The stream from the Aron, the luchot and the Sefer Torah of Moshe, will make the original fruits of Gan Eden return. Those who drink those waters produce character, good deeds, and eternal life. Today the truth is concealed; then it will shine, and no one will receive special reward merely for recognizing it.
Diamond and coal
Ve-samti kadkod shimshotayich u-she'arayich le-avnei ekdach.
R Yochanan: HaKadosh Baruch Hu will bring precious stones thirty by thirty cubits, hollow them to an entrance of ten by twenty, and set them as the gates of Yerushalayim. Then people will understand that what comes forth from those gates is more precious than the diamond. The gate is only the entrance to what is inside.
How can a diamond be thirty by thirty? Diamond and coal are the same carbon. The difference is crystallization under temperature and pressure. Seams of coal are already larger than thirty by thirty. Artificial diamonds are made today.
A rich talmid ridiculed: now we cannot find a diamond the size of a little bird's egg; all these thirty by thirty you will find? His ship went out. In a vision he saw malachim sawing huge diamonds. He asked for whom. They answered: these are the ones HaKadosh Baruch Hu will set in the gates of Yerushalayim. He came back, found R Yochanan teaching, and said, Rebbe, continue; just as you said, I saw. R Yochanan: reika, empty-headed: had you not seen you would not have believed; you were melagleg: mocking the words of the chachamim. He put his eyes on him and the man became a pile of bones. He had needed the vision.
Walk erect
Va-holachti eschem komemiyut.
The Jew will walk erect, head raised, because the world will recognize that he was right. Komah is a man's stature; komemiyut is double. R Meir: two hundred amos, twice the height of Adam HaRishon. After the sin Adam was diminished to one hundred amos.
Mankind has been stunted by a deteriorated environment. Ancient deposits show a permanent springtime climate: lush vegetation pressed into coal beds in the far north, warm-climate plants in the stomachs of frozen mammoths, coral reefs in the Arctic. When successive curses came, that ecology was lost. The capacity remains in the seed. Children of stunted European parents grow taller in a better climate. In the future the original environment will be restored.
Asher baneinu ki-neti'im megudalim bi-ne'ureihem; benoseinu ke-zaviyos. Daughters like corners: kept private, behind garden walls, like precious plants in a garden.
How do men two hundred amos high pass through a gate of twenty? The size given is for the windows, to let air and sunlight pass. The gates themselves will be larger.
A load of His hand
Baruch Hashem yom yom ya'amos lanu.
Anyone who blackens his face over divrei Torah in this world, who denies himself luxuries and eats poorly, HaKadosh Baruch Hu will cause his splendor to shine in olam ha-ba. Mar'ehu ka-levanon, bachur ka-arazim.
Josephus described the Pharisees as living for concord and peace, skilled in the law, and living poorly on a meager diet. Hillel sold wood for a small coin, half for his family and half to the doorkeeper so he could enter the yeshiva. R Akiva left his wife on hay. R Eliezer ben Hyrcanus put his head into a bag of earth and chewed dirt; R Yochanan ben Zakkai discovered it. These will be satiated from the fat of Your house and will drink the stream of Your delights. The delights far surpass food. Even starvation because no kosher food is available is rewarded.
HaKadosh Baruch Hu will give each tzaddik a load full, as much as He can hold in His hand. The whole world is only a zeres: a span of that hand, ve-shamayim ba-zeres tiken. How can a man receive a full handful? He will give each tzaddik three hundred and ten worlds. Le-hanchil ohavai yesh: yesh in gematria is 310. A world here means three hundred and ten times the size of this universe. From the place one world comes, the rest also come.
Ba-midah she-adam moded, modedin lo. The measure of good is always greater than the measure of punishment. For a mitzvah the reward is eternal; for the wicked, twelve months. When the man was given, dalsei shamayim patach: the whole door of heaven was opened. At the mabul, arubot ha-shamayim niftachu: only the windows.
In the future the tzaddikim will go out and look at the bodies of those who rebelled. The worms do not die and the fire is not extinguished. A man cannot keep his finger in fire for a moment, yet the wicked endure constantly. HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives them strength to feel a punishment beyond human endurance; otherwise they would collapse and stop feeling. In the same way He gives the tzaddikim strength to accept their reward. Sudden great good news can be fatal in this world; the nerves are not built for the happiness of olam ha-ba.
The Mishnah continues: one who reads the outside books has no chelek. The Gemara begins: these are the books of the Tzedukim. What books they possessed is still open.
How the hidden flaw of Gechazi, already present when he took Naaman's gifts in Elisha's name, is revealed only by the later name-calling before the king, is left open.
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