This thorny question as seen in the eyes of various commentators.
Parashat Toldot relates (25:19-21) : ‘And these are the offsprings of Yitzchak son of Avraham..Yitzchak was forty years old when he took Rivkah, daughter of Bethuel the Aramean..sister of Laban..as a wife for himself. Yitzchak entreated Hashem לנכח: opposite his wife, because she was barren, and Hashem accepted his prayer, and Rivkah his wife conceived.’
Rashi comments:’Opposite his wife’: Yitzchak was, standing in this corner and praying, and Rivkah was standing in that corner and praying. ‘Accepted his prayer’: but not hers, for the prayer of ‘a righteous man, the son of a righteous man’, does not compare to the prayer of ‘a righteous man, the son of a wicked man’. Therefore, Hashem accepted his prayer, and not hers’
There are parshanim who offer a different interpretation of the word נוכח, not as ‘opposite’, as Rashi interpreted, but as ‘concerning’ Rivkah.
Chezkuni comments:’ לנוכח: ‘to repair her defect’: her barrenness, since as to himself there was no need for him to pray, as he knew that he was not barren, as Hashem had promised Avraham:(21:12)’For in Yitzchak will be called your seed’, but for his wife, ‘because she was barren’; and why was she barren ? so that the nations would not say that the prayer of her wicked brother and her mother (24:60:’Our sister, may you become thousands of myriads’) bore fruit, but rather, that Hashem acceded to the prayer of Yitzchak’.
Would we not have expected that the prayer of a person, who, despite their parent being wicked, was himself righteous, would be more precious in the eyes of Hashem, than the prayer of a righteous person, whose father was also righteous?
Why, then, do our Sages (Yevamot 64.), as Rashi brings, learn that the opposite is the case?
Rav David Pardo, the ‘Maskil leDavid’, answers:’You would have thought the opposite, that the righteous person whose father was wicked was preferable, that even though he had someone to teach him otherwise, he did not go in his ways - indeed, Rashi comments, on the previous passuk, that the reason the Torah mentions the family of Rivkah, is to praise Rivkah, that, despite her being the daughter of a wicked person, she was righteous.
‘However, as to their prayers, their merits are different, because, as the Gemara teaches in regard to a different matter, one whose father was also righteous is already ‘a member of Hashem’s household’, as he is ‘regular’ before Him, unlike one who himself is righteous, but whose father was not, and therefore does not have the same ‘familiarity’ before Hashem.’
Rav Yaakov Kaminetsky brings a Midrash - which Rashi also brings -that they each prayed in opposite corners, and that concludes that the prayer of a righteous person the son of a righteous person, is preferable to that of a righteous person the son of a wicked person, as learned from Hashem acceding to the entreaty of Yitzchak, and not that of Rivkah.
He expounds:’Perhaps we can say that the two things are dependent one on the other, as the reason each one needed to pray in their own corner, was because their prayers were fundamentally different - the prayer of the righteous man, Yitzchak, the son of a righteous man - Avraham Avinu - was that his son should be like the righteous grandfather, Avraham Avinu, whilst the prayer of Rivkah, the righteous person the daughter of a wicked person, was that the child should not be like the wicked grandfather - her father- Bethuel.’
Rav Eliyahu Dessler proffers a different answer to our query, first noting that ‘Rav Simcha Zissel, the Alter miKelm, pointed out that we find, in the Gemara (Sanhedrin 39:) an opposite teaching, that the stature of a righteous person, whose father was wicked, is higher than that of a righteous person who is the son of a righteous person, as the Gemara there states:’Let Ovadia, who lived between two wicked people - Ahab and Jezebel - and did not learn from their wicked ways, prophecy regards the wicked Esav, who lived with two righteous parents, yet did not learn from their righteous ways.’
‘Therefore, one who was brought up in the company of wicked people, yet became righteous himself - is preferable.
‘Here the Alter innovated a new principle : our Sages elsewhere lay down (Yoma 29.): that to undo the past, is more difficult than new learning, the reason being, that when concerned with a new matter, he knows that ‘he does not know’, and therefore makes a great effort to understand, and, as a result, finally fully understands the matter.
‘Not so when the matter is one that he has previously studied, as he thinks that he therefore knows it, even though, in fact, with the passage in time, he has forgotten much of it.
‘For this reason, the one who strives to also fully understand that which he has previously learned, is ‘superior’ to one who is learning material for the first time - and this is the greatness of a righteous man the son of a righteous man, in our discussion.
‘Thus, Avraham found that the ways of the world in his time were totally false, and strove to seek the truth, a new enquiry. Yitzchak therefore already learned the truth, from his father, Avraham - it being, for him, ‘old learning’; yet he strove to toil and delve into it himself, as it was ‘new’ learning for him.
‘Therefore ‘a righteous man the son of a righteous man’, who toils to be, as it were, a righteous man himself, and is not satisfied to rely on that which his father learned, is ‘greater’ than ‘a righteous man the son of a wicked man’, who never had to make this endeavor, as, to him, everything he learns is obviously ‘new’ learning.
‘The Alter brought in aid of this truth, the case of a non-Jew, who sees the truth in Judaism, and comes to recognize the falsehood of all he had previously held, and comes to convert; yet, with the passage of time, he becomes lax in the observance of various mitzvot - how can we understand this?
‘The answer is, that initially, he was greatly moved by all the bad of his previous ways, his awakening was very strong, so much so, that he changed his ways from one extreme to the other; but afterwards, when his new ways become ‘his rote’, he no longer had this strong awakening, and therefore, even the slightest test was beyond him, until he completely lost that feeling completely.
‘Concludes the Alter, we have to be, each and every day, like that non-Jew when he came to convert, moved by the awakening in him of the great truth, that he now embraces.’
Rav Eliyahu Shlezinger adds:’The one who grew up in a house of torah and awe of Hashem, may well have to toil harder on his midot, than one who was not raised in such a household. Thus, there is an accusation, as it were, from baalei teshuva on those who are religious from birth - the former cannot understand how the latter can be so casual in their performance of mitzvot.
‘One who has grown up in a religious household, he davka has to work harder on his midot, for two reasons: One, that his parents did not devote sufficient attention to this, assuming that since he grew up in a religious household, he will ‘automatically’, also be righteous.
‘Second: the son himself does not see the need to work on his midot, in his reliance that, being the son of a ‘good’ family, his midot must be fine.
‘In truth, the one who comes from the household that is far from torah and mitzvot, it is easier for him to improve his midot because he has seen with his own eyes, how low a man can descend, because of bad midot.
‘Therefore, we are not to assume that Yirzchak was righteous because he grew in the house of righteous parents, but rather, he has to toil hard himself to rise to be Yitzchak Avinu, and this unending toil is the reason that his prayers were accepted, rather than the prayers of Rivkah.’
A parting gem from the Ben Ish Hai:’The torah used the word לנוכח אשתו, with regards to the prayer of Yitzchak, not in the sense of ‘opposite’ - as Rashi translates - but, as ‘concerning his wife’.
‘By so praying, Yitzchak sought to invoke in favor of his barren wife, two merits of Avraham Avinu, which are alluded to in her name:’the first הבן בקר the calf that Avraham fed to the three wayfarers, an act which our Sages say, Hashem promised to be a merit to his descendants.
‘Second, ויקם בבוקר: the alacrity with which Avraham rose in the early hour of the morning, to perform the akeida, which our Sages also see, as a merit to his descendants.
‘These two merits are alluded to in the name רבקה: because, changing the order of the letters, רבקה reads as הבקר, and is also the letters of הבקר: the morning, allude to Avraham’s alacrity, in the akeida. ‘This is the meaning of ויעתר יצחק לה׳ לנכח אשתו: ‘and Yitzchak entreated Hashem concerning his wife’: alluding to the merits of her name.’
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/266737
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