אִם יִרְצֶה הַשֵּׁם
ה׳ חֶשְׁוָן תשפ״ז
The teachings of R' Elazar on 92a
Three teachings open the page, in summary:
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Speech that changes the facts is treated with the gravity of avodah zarah. Both rest on a refusal of truth.
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Giving the mind to forbidden indecency weakens a man's own strength of will, middah keneged middah.
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Le'olam hevei kavel v'kayam: be kavel, inconspicuous, and you will last. The Mishnah in Nega'im about a bayis afel, a dark house whose nega is not inspected by artificial light, is brought as the parallel. Visibility and prominence carry their own demand.
Womb and grave
R' Tavi in the name of R' Yoshiya links she'ol and otzer rechem in Mishlei 30:16. What enters the womb bears no resemblance to the person who emerges from it, and the same is said of the grave and the one who will rise from it.
The Gemara makes the kal va-chomer explicit: the womb receives in silence and brings forth amid cries; the grave receives amid cries, so it will bring forth amid greater cries. This is given as an answer to those who say there is no techiyas ha-mesim in the Torah.
From Tanna d'vei Eliyahu: the tzaddikim who are revived will not return to dust. When the world is remade, they are given kenafayim ke-nesharim, wings like eagles, and their state does not depend on the upheaval below.
Yechezkel's dry bones
The Gemara asks whether the episode in Yechezkel 37 was a mashal for the nation in galus, or an actual revival.
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R' Eliezer and R' Yehoshua hold it was actual. They stood and sang, and died.
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R' Yehuda, corrected by R' Nechemiah on the wording of the mesorah, holds: b'emes mashal haya, truly it was a mashal.
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R' Eliezer b'R Yosi ha-Glili holds it was actual and they continued to live, went to Eretz Yisrael, married, and raised families. R' Yehuda ben Beseira said he was a descendant and held tefillin inherited from them.
On who the meisim were, the views differ:
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Rav: the Bnei Ephraim who counted the keitz and erred. See the next sections.
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Shmuel: people who had denied techiyas ha-mesim.
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R' Yirmiyah bar Abba: those who had no moisture of mitzvah in them.
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Another view: those who had covered the heichal with abominations in the days of Menashe.
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R' Yochanan: the meisim of Bikas Dura.
The page closes the episode with Chananya, Mishael, and Azarya and the six things that occurred on the day of the furnace and the revival in Bikas Dura.
Rav's identification: the Bnei Ephraim (92b)
On Sanhedrin 92b, Rav identifies the dead whom Yechezkel revived as the Bnei Ephraim who manu la-keitz v'ta'u, counted toward the end and erred.
The pesukim are in Divrei HaYamim I 7:20-22. Ezer and Elad are killed by the men of Gath who were born in the land, after they came down to take their cattle. Ephraim their father mourned many days, and his brothers came to console him.
The thirty-year error
Rashi explains the count. The decree of four hundred years of servitude (Bereishis 15:13) begins from the birth of Yitzchak, for the zera spoken of is Yitzchak. Avraham was seventy at the brit bein ha-besarim and one hundred at Yitzchak's birth. The thirty years between the speech and the birth are the error.
From the brit to yetziat Mitzrayim was four hundred and thirty years. They counted only four hundred from the speech itself, and left thirty years early.
Tehillim 78:9 is read the same way: Bnei Ephraim, armed with bows, turned back on the day of battle. They left in their own strength before the keitz, and were routed.
Why the land was not yet theirs
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They counted the four hundred years from the brit.
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The zera of the decree is Yitzchak, born thirty years later.
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They left before the avon of the Emori was complete (Bereishis 15:16), and the men of Gath who were noladim ba-aretz, born in the land, killed them.
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They came down to take the cattle of Gath, while the land still belonged to its inhabitants and the fourth generation had not yet returned.
The lesson of the revival
In Yechezkel's vision the same bones are raised. According to Rav, they are these Bnei Ephraim.
Rav Avigdor Miller zt"l stresses one further point in brief: return to life in this world after the soul has known the world of souls is not presented here as a reward. On this reading, they are raised as a warning to a generation entering galus not to force the keitz, but to accept the exile Hashem set, build, marry, and wait.
For this identification, no standard midrashic rule is invoked in the sugya. The link rests on the pesukim in Divrei HaYamim and on the shared language of dried bones and lost hope.
Terms of art
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mashlich b'diburav: one who changes the facts with his speech.
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kashto ne'na'eret: his bow is shaken.
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kavel: dark, inconspicuous.
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bayis afel: a dark house. A nega in it is not inspected by artificial light.
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she'ol / rechem: grave and womb, both machnis u-motzi, taking in and bringing out.
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kenafayim ke-nesharim: wings like eagles.
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manu la-keitz: they counted toward the end of the shibud.
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v'ta'u: and they erred, by the thirty years.
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noladim ba-aretz: born in the land. The men of Gath still held their tenure.
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ki lo shalem avon ha-Emori ad hena: the sin of the Emori was not yet full. Four generations were required before the land could be taken.
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Bikas Dura: the plain of Dura, where the image stood and where the bones were revived.
Hermeneutics (explicit only)
⚘ kal va-chomer: womb and grave, above. The Gemara itself names it and uses it against those who deny techiyas in the Torah.
For the Bnei Ephraim identification, none of the standard rules is invoked. The link is by the pesukim in Divrei HaYamim and the shared language of dried bones and lost hope.
Open kashyos
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According to the view that the revived dead continued to live, married, and raised children in Eretz Yisrael (R' Eliezer b'R Yosi ha-Glili), and that R' Yehuda ben Beseira held their tefillin, what becomes of the reading of the revival as a warning against an early return? Did the object lesson end once they had testified, or did their later life in the land alter the din of the premature exit?
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According to the view that the beautiful youths of Bikas Dura were revived and continued to live, what was the precise purpose of their return? The earlier cases supply a clear object lesson of error. This case does not.