אִם יִרְצֶה הַשֵּׁם
א׳ כִּסְלֵו תשפ״ז
The sugya is Sanhedrin 103a. Tape: Perek Chelek 26. Rav Avigdor Miller zt"l. On 102b: A tunnel under the beit din.
Neither post nor transcript has been reviewed by Rav Avigdor Miller zt"l nor the Toras Avigdor organization.
No nachas
Yischar chacham im ish kesil, ragaz ve-sacho ve-ein nachas: a wise man contends with a fool, is angry and laughs, and there is no satisfaction.
Rav Chisda said it in the name of R. Yirmiyah bar Abba. A wise man who disputes with a fool has to change the tactic. First ragaz: anger, strictness, scolding. If the man is so far gone that scolding will not work, then sacho: coaxing, and laughing. It is a bad sign when one must joke with a criminal. Still there is no nachas.
HaKadosh Baruch Hu tried anger with Achaz. He put him into the hands of the kings of Damascus. They conquered. Achaz slaughtered to their gods and said their gods help them, so he would bring offerings that they might help him. He became worse. No nachas.
Then He smiled with Amatzyah. He put the kings of Edom into his hand. Amatzyah conquered them. He was afraid their gods would take revenge because he had conquered their worshipers, so he brought the gods home and bowed to them. If they conquered him he worshipped them. If he conquered them he worshipped them. No nachas.
A father weeps to his grown son and calls him ma. The son does not make himself aware. Then the father smiles. Still ignored. In any situation, good or bad, the son fails to respond. Woe is to him.
They added
Ki kol elohei ha-amim elilim, va-Hashem shamayim asah: all the gods of the nations are nothing, and Hashem made the heavens.
The Gentiles of those days believed every nation had its national gods. Only Am Yisrael said that. When some of the Bnei Yisrael fell under the influence they did not deny Hashem Elokei Yisrael. They thought it would be worthwhile to be on good terms with the neighboring gods as well. The nations meant business. They slaughtered their sons and daughters to the idols. It was hard to resist.
Only Am Hashem kept their independence and despised the gods of stone, wood, and gold. In the royal house of Yehudah an undercurrent kept surfacing, imported by the women the kings married. Those kings still worshipped HaKadosh Baruch Hu. They dabbled.
The peg
Ve-chol sarei melech Bavel ba'u va-yeshevu be-sha'ar ha-tavech: all the officers of the king of Bavel came and sat in the sha'ar ha-tavech.
The name is nowhere else in Tanakh. Sha'ar ha-tavech is the middle gate, the place where Torah is cut and decided, the place from which ki mi-Tziyon teitzei Torah. The chief chachmei Yisrael sat there. Now the officers of the king of Bavel sit there and carry on their leitzanus.
It was a maxim already in use. When R. Eliezer ben Hyrcanus died, Rebbi proposed to the widow. She answered with the same words: where the master hangs his weapons, the shepherd boy hangs his bag. A low shepherd boy hangs his bag on the peg where the master hangs his weapons. Because kings had put idols in the place of avodas Hashem, raw Gentiles sat where the kedoshim of Am Yisrael had sat. That goes to the heart. It is what happens when wrong values replace the right ones.
The neglected field
Al sadeh ish atzel avarti, ve-al kerem adam chasar lev: I passed by the field of a lazy man, and by the vineyard of a man lacking heart.
Shlomo put his mind to it. The others just passed by. Overgrown with thorns. The face covered with brambles. The wall of stones overthrown. A little sleeping, a little dozing, the arms folded to rest. Poverty comes first like a visitor, then like a man with a shield. Every man is a garden. His duty is to plant the plants of delight. Leave it, and brambles take the place. Wrong ideas come in.
On the national scale the vineyard is Kerem Hashem Tzeva'os Beis Yisrael. Sadeh ish atzel is Achaz. Not that he was merely lazy. He did wicked things. The biggest wrong was that he did not use the opportunity given to him, a grand opportunity that comes only to a few. Kerem adam chasar lev is Menashe. He could have raised the best vines. He was chasar lev. He lacked seichel. Ve-hinei alah kulo kimshonim is Amon, worse than his father, and the people rose and killed him. Kasu panav charulim is Yehoyakim. Ve-gader avanav neherasah is Tzidkiyahu. In his days the Churban came. The Beis haMikdash was the great fence. The garden was already too far gone. He overthrew the wall for nothing.
The mashal is the individual and the nation. Something grows if the field is left. Thorns take the place of the valuable plants.
The king in front
In the Gemara the main characters are tzaddikim, and men of power barely appear. In the Nevi'im the kings are the central actors and the tzaddikim are like assistants.
Va-yeshev Shlomo al kisei Hashem: Shlomo sat on the throne of Hashem.
For us in the beis ha-midrash the king was the direct shaliach of HaKadosh Baruch Hu to carry out the Torah. Every king was a deputy. With unlimited power he could make the people righteous. In David's time they could not find sinners. When a king was righteous he was better than all the nevi'im put together, because he was mezakeh et ha-rabbim. A man who is mezakeh et ha-rabbim is greater than a greater tzaddik. There is nothing higher.
The house of David was given that golden opportunity. When a king neglected it we call him a lazy fellow and a fool. He is the prototype of the man whose life goes lost because he does not use what was given to him.
Four who do not greet
Arba'ah katim einan mekabelin penei Shechinah: four groups do not greet the face of the Shechinah.
Rav Chisda said it in the name of R. Yirmiyah bar Abba. Kat leitzim, kat shakranim, kat chanifim, kat mesaprei lashon ha-ra. Mekabel here means to greet. The happiness of olam ha-ba is gazing at the splendor of the Shechinah. Tzaddikim sit with their crowns on their heads and receive pleasure from the glow of the Shechinah. These four will not gaze directly. They may be in that realm and catch some reflection. The full division is in the third sha'ar of Rabbeinu Yonah's Sha'arei Teshuvah. He splits each group.
Moshech yado et ha-leitzim: Hashem withdraws His hand from them.
Leitzanus is the attitude of making light of things and not taking anything seriously. The mind cannot dwell on yiras Shamayim.
Dover shekarim lo yikon le-neged einai: he who speaks falsehood will not be established before My eyes.
Some lie for gain. Some lie to appear important. Some are only careless and furbish the story with details that are not true.
Ki lo le-fanecha chanef yavo: a flatterer will not come before You.
Not the ordinary word said to make someone happy. Flattery used to achieve an end. Or they see people doing wrong and give the impression that they approve, instead of rebuke.
Ki lo el hafetz resha atah, lo yegurcha ra: You are not a God who desires wickedness, and evil will not sojourn with You.
No wicked man can be where He dwells. The following verse speaks of lashon ha-ra. A man who is ra will not dwell with HaKadosh Baruch Hu.
Three speakers
Lo te'uneh elecha ra'ah, ve-nega lo yikrav be-ohalecha: no evil will befall you, and no plague will come near your tent.
The mizmor is three parts. David spoke first, to his son Shlomo. Then Bathsheba. Then HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Only Hashem can say "because he delighted in Me."
David: the yetzer ha-ra of arayos should not gain control. One example is that he should not come home from a long journey and find his wife a safek niddah. Clear-cut issues are harder to step over. Doubts are what the yetzer ha-ra loves. The boundary is shatui: any situation in which a man might deceive himself. Hashem should prevent it. Another: he should not be frightened by wicked dreams and wicked thoughts. Another reading of the plague that must not approach the tent: no son or talmid who burns his porridge in public. Too much zeal in the wrong direction. It becomes bad. The efforts have gone to vain. A father's tefillos help, even though the son has free will. This is a model for what a father should ask.
The mother cannot imagine that he needs those blessings. She prays for physical safety and health. Ki mal'achav yetzaveh lach: He will command His angels for you. They carry him, and he tramples the lion and the adder.
Then Shamayim. Ki vi chashak va-afalteihu: because his whole desire will be only in Me, I will rescue him. Asagvehu ki yada shemi is not literal. It means he is always close to the Shem Shamayim, studying His ways. I shall answer. I shall be with him in distress. I shall extricate him and give him glory. Length of days. I shall show him My salvation.
The hanging ayin
Mipnei mah ayin shel resha'im taluya: why is the ayin of resha'im suspended?
In ve-yimana me-resha'im oram the ayin hangs above the line in the handwritten scroll, so the word is read two ways. With the ayin, resha'im, the wicked. Without it, rashim, the poor. Ve-yimana me-rashim oram: from the poor their light is withheld. A certain kind of poverty. When a man becomes poor down here, estranged, quarreling, and nobody cares for him, he becomes poor above also. HaKadosh Baruch Hu is not on his side.
Kol she-ruach ha-beriyos nocheh heimenu: one with whom the spirit of people is pleased.
Usually a man can know where he stands from the attitude of people. The rule is not unqualified. David had great enemies, Shimi ben Gera and Achitofel, and enemies who were tzaddikim. Nechemyah ben Chachalyah was hated by the Kutim, by their Jewish relatives, by those who did not want the walls of Yerushalayim rebuilt, and by the intermarried. He pushed the Kutim out, built the walls nobody wanted, attacked the intermarried, slapped them, and pulled their beards. He was the strong arm of Ezra's reforms, and he restored the nation. Rabbah was hated by all of Pumbedisa. Abaye asked who would weep for him. Rabbah said: if you weep for me, it is enough. The weepers are judged by quality, not by quantity. If the tzaddikim weep, disregard the resha'im.
The hanging ayin is there to remind you that the rule applies fully only to the resha'im. A person might think he is a tzaddik when he is not. If he is kindly to other people he still has to worry about whether he is a tzaddik before Hashem. If he is on bad terms with other people, it could be that he is on bad terms with HaKadosh Baruch Hu too. Totally wicked.
Fifty-five ways
Menashe learned fifty-five different ways in Torat Kohanim, the Sifra, parallel to the fifty-five years of his reign. Each year a new version, a new level. The kings of Yehudah were great in Torah. They studied from boyhood, and they continued while they were sinning, because Torah was the glory of a man. Achav went through it eighty-five times. He was more busy with Torah than Menashe. The stature was tremendous. Yeravam did it one hundred and three times.
Toraso shel Yeravam ein bah mum: the Torah of Yeravam had no blemish in it.
These men dedicated their lives to Torah. It was their chief occupation. If you are skeptical of that, you cannot take the Gemara halfway. Accept everything or nothing. Some things the Nevi'im made bigger than we would. Some things they called very bad. They were great men otherwise. The Nevi'im castigated them for what they deserved.
The minutes
Va-yaku et Avshalom va-yamituhu: they smote Avshalom and killed him.
Makeh in Tanakh already means to kill, as with Moshe and the Egyptian. Why both smote and killed? They smote him in this world and put him to death for olam ha-ba. As long as a man is alive he can still repent. Had they left him hanging and wounded, or scourged him, a few minutes would have been enough for him to be sorry for all that he did, and he would have been accepted. He would have been a ben olam ha-ba. They killed him at once and did not give him the chance. They slew him for the world to come by denying him those minutes.
Left without either
The kings of Yisrael who did evil are not listed among those the Mishnah says have no chelek, and they are not said to be judged in Gehinnom. They were left without either. Not in Gehinnom, and not in Gan Eden. Each had redeeming features, despite the great sins. Menashe is not in that list. The Mishnah states openly that he has no chelek, though there is an opinion in the Gemara that he does.
We are going to hear terrible things. Menashe shed very much innocent blood. These people lived in a time when HaKadosh Baruch Hu was real to them. What they did, they did for spite. What a person does for spite, no enemy would do. Close relatives, out of spite, do what strangers would never think of doing. They believed implicitly. They were angry at Him because He did not come to help when they thought He should. The Nevi'im warned them. They thought the Nevi'im were exaggerating: after all, we are pretty good. When the evil came upon them they were angry the way a brother or a son can be angry, and they did the worst things. Menashe saw the ten tribes sent out in divorce. He was named after one of them. He was so angry that...
The lecture breaks off there, on Menashe's anger after the exile of the ten tribes. How far the redeeming feature of their Torah, and of the later teshuvah in the brass vessel, reaches when the blood is dam naki in great quantity, and when the acts are done for spite against the One they still fully believed in, is left open.
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