אִם יִרְצֶה הַשֵּׁם
ל׳ חֶשְׁוָן תשפ״ז
The sugya is Sanhedrin 102b. Tape: Perek Chelek 25. Rav Avigdor Miller zt"l. On 102a: Half a very good Jew.
Neither post nor transcript has been reviewed by Rav Avigdor Miller zt"l nor the Toras Avigdor organization.
Twenty-two years
Mipnei mah zachah Achav le-malchus esrim u-shtayim shanah: because of what was Achav worthy to reign twenty-two years?
Mipnei she-kibed et ha-Torah she-nitnah be-esrim u-shtayim osios: because he honored the Torah that was given in twenty-two letters. Half a very good Jew already tells that all the people refused with him. The reason that refusal can only be a Sefer Torah is here.
Mai machmad einecha? What is the delight of your eyes?
Lav Sefer Torah? It means a Sefer Torah. Dilma avodah zarah: maybe an idol. Lo salik da'atach: that could not enter your mind. Va-yomeru elav kol ha-zekenim ve-chol ha-am: all the elders and all the people said, do not listen and do not consent. If it were an idol, the tzaddikim among them would have wanted it removed.
Even ziknei Yisrael can be ziknei ra'ah in an exceptional case, as with Avshalom. There it does not say kol ha-am. Here it says all the people. Melachim records seven thousand whose knees never bent to the Baal. Yehu later gathered all the ovdei ha-Baal into one building. They were few. Unanimous refusal is possible only for a Sefer Torah.
Rav Miller zt"l: the public that still contained tzaddikim would not have protected an idol.
Achav shakul hayah: Achav was equally balanced.
Achav vataran be-mamono hayah: Achav was easygoing with his money. He caused benefit to talmidei chachamim from his property, and that atoned for half his sins. Rav Miller zt"l: support of Torah study halves the account even when the rest of the conduct is far from balanced.
Go out
Mi yefateh et Achav ve-ya'al ve-yipol be-Ramot Gil'ad? Who will persuade Achav to go up and fall at Ramot Gil'ad?
Vayetzei ha-ruach: a spirit came forth. Ani afatenu: I will persuade him. Etezei ve-hayiti ruach sheker be-fi kol nevi'av: I will be a spirit of falsehood in the mouth of all his prophets.
Mai ruach? Amar R. Yochanan: rucho shel Navos ha-Yizre'eli: the spirit of Navos the Yizre'eli, seeking revenge for the vineyard.
Hashem said tzei: go out. Dober shekarim lo yikon le-neged einai: he who speaks falsehood cannot remain standing before My eyes. The plan was accepted. The one who proposed falsehood was told to leave.
De-para kenya machriv beisa: he who collects his revenge destroys his house.
Rava brought the folk saying. Rav Miller zt"l: the spirit that sought revenge was itself expelled from the vicinity of Hashem.
The gates
Va-yas Achav et ha-Asherah: Achav made the Asherah, a grove of trees for avodah zarah.
Va-yosef Achav la'asos le-hach'is: and Achav continued to do more to anger Hashem than all the kings of Yisrael who were before him. Rav Miller zt"l: le-hach'is means public, demonstrative acts against avodas Hashem.
Katav al dalsei Shomron: he wrote on the gates of Shomron, "Achav denied the God of Yisrael."
R. Yochanan said it. The wording is a paraphrase. Kafar is not a Tanach word. Dedicating the gates to the Baal amounted, in the eyes of the loyal, to that denial.
Achav remained a Jew. The trial of Navos followed the Torah: two witnesses, skilah outside the city. His sons from Izevel were named Achazya and Yehoram. Hashem was still Elokei Yisrael. Public sanction of the Baal was treated as the denial.
Cutting the names
Yehu sought Achazya, who was hiding in Shomron.
Mekate'a shemos min ha-Sefer Torah ve-kotev shemos shel avodah zarah: he was cutting the names of Hashem out of the Sefer Torah and writing the names of idolatry.
He hid it because even the people of Shomron would not countenance it.
This was one of the errors of Yehoshafat the tzaddik. He sought to draw the house of Achav close. Partnership with them cooled him instead of warming them.
The same verse
Menashe was named after the lost tribe. The shock of the ten tribes' exile left him with a grudge: why did Hashem allow the gods of the nations to conquer? He grew up angry.
Menashe she-nashah et Hashem: Menashe forgot Hashem.
She-hishkah et Yisrael la-avihem she-ba-shamayim: he caused Yisrael to be forgotten by their Father in heaven. The churban was sealed from his days.
He began to reign at twelve and reigned fifty-five years. Va-yas Asherah ka-asher asah Achav: he made an Asherah as Achav had done. The comparison is read, on one view, as teaching that just as Achav has no chelek le-olam ha-ba, so Menashe.
Va-yitpallel Menashe el Hashem va-ye'ater lo: Menashe prayed to Hashem, and Hashem allowed Himself to be persuaded by him.
When Ashur captured him and roasted him in the brass vessel, he called to all his gods. Only at the end did he call to the God of his fathers, and the doors opened.
R. Yehuda says Menashe has a chelek le-olam ha-ba. The Rabanan say he has none. Both learn from the same posuk. Ve-natati otam le-za'avah le-chol mamlachot ha-aretz biglal Menashe ben Chizkiya: I will make them a trembling to all the kingdoms of the earth because of Menashe.
R. Yehuda reads it for the sake of Menashe who did teshuvah, to accuse the people who did not follow him when he returned. The Rabanan read it for the sake of Menashe who did not do sufficient teshuvah. As king he could have forced the people back. He stopped his own idolatry and did not uproot what he had planted.
Kol ha-omer Menashe ein lo chelek le-olam ha-ba me-rapheh yedeihem shel ba'alei teshuvah: anyone who says Menashe has no share weakens the hands of those who do teshuvah.
R. Yochanan said it. The Baraisa of R. Yehuda gives Menashe teshuvah for the thirty-three years that remained: fifty-five minus the twenty-two parallel to Achav's years of idolatry.
Rav Miller zt"l: the same verse supports either the defense of Menashe's teshuvah or the charge that it was incomplete.
The tunnel
Va-ye'ater lo: Hashem allowed Himself to be persuaded.
Al tikrei va-ye'ater ela va-ye'ater: do not read it as persuaded. Read it as He made a tunnel. Asah lo machteret: He made for him a tunnel under the beit din of heaven, so that middas ha-din would not block the acceptance of his prayer.
By all ordinary sevaros Menashe should not have been forgiven. The attribute of mercy and the power of teshuvah brought him in. Rav Miller zt"l: the unusual verb signals that the acceptance went against the ordinary measure of justice.
A new start
Be-reishit mamlachot Yehoyakim and be-reishit mamlachot Tzidkiya. Why be-reishit, which recalls the beginning of the world, and not the ordinary phrase for the first year?
HaKadosh Baruch Hu considered returning the world to tohu va-vohu on account of their wickedness. He looked at the generation of Yoshiyahu, raised on his great teshuvah, for Yehoyakim, and at Tzidkiya himself, an exceptional tzaddik, for the later generation, and gave them a new start.
Tzidkiya is blamed in the posuk because she-hayah be-yado limnot ve-lo minah: he had the power to prevent the wicked officers and did not. He was righteous and lacked the strength of character to overcome the corrupted royal house, as in the rescue of Yirmiyahu from the pit by Eved-Melech the Cushite.
Ish chacham nishpot et ish evil, ve-ragaz ve-sachak ve-ein nachat: a wise man disputes with a fool. He was angry and then he laughed, and there was no pleasure.
First anger, rebuke and loss of territory. Then smiling, reconquest and increase. Neither brought nachat.
The Baraisa counts thirty-three years of teshuvah for Menashe by subtracting Achav's twenty-two. Does the parallel require that every year of the Asherah matched in severity, or is the subtraction only a calendar marker that still leaves how much of the planted avodah zarah a king must uproot before the chelek is restored? The verse that records the acceptance of Menashe's prayer is the verse that still hangs the churban on his name.
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