Various commentators weigh in on a question on the Torah reading. Did Bnei israel in Egypt not have any Mitzvot, so that Hashem felt compelled to give them these two new Mitzvot - pesach and milah - in the merit of which they were redeemed from Egypt?
Our Parasha relates the Mitzvah of the Korban Pesach, of which Hashem commanded Moshe to ‘speak to the entire assembly of Israel, saying (12:2:12) ’They shall slaughter it in the afternoon.They shall take some of the blood and place it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses in which they shall eat it..’
‘I shall go through the land of Egypt on this night, and I shall strike every first-born in the land of Egypt..The blood shall be a sign for you upon the houses where you are; when I shall see the blood and I shall pass over you; there shall not be a plague of destruction upon you when I strike in the land of Egypt.’
The Torah then relates, that Moshe relayed this commandment to Bnei Israel, but with some variations to Hashem’s words:(12:21-24 ) ’Moshe called all the elders of Israel and said to them: Draw forth or buy for yourselves one of the flock for your families, and slaughter the pesach offering.
‘You shall take a bundle of hyssop and dip it into the blood that is in the basin, והגעתם: and reach the lintel and the two doorposts with some of the blood that is in the basin, and as for you, no man shall leave the entrance of the house until morning.
‘Hashem will pass through to smite Egypt, and He will see the blood that is on the lintel and on the two doorposts; and Hashem will pass over the entrance and he will not permit the destroyer to enter enter your homes to smite.
‘You shall observe this matter as a decree for yourself and for your children forever.’
Rashi comments:’And I shall see the blood’: Everything is revealed to Hashem’, so why does the Torah mention that He will ‘see’ the blood? ‘Rather, He said:’I will focus My attention to see that you are engaged in My commandments, and I will skip over you.’
Rav David Pardo adds: This is what Hashem said:’And I saw the merit of the blood, and I will skip over you.
This can be seen alluded to in the use of the words: וראיתי, in the past tense, it does not mean ‘I saw’, but read as: ’I already saw this - earlier.’
The Chezkuni notes that Moshe, in his words to the elders, reversed the order of Hashem’s words to him, Hashem preceded the doorposts to the lintel, whereas Moshe preceded the lintel to the doorposts
He comments:This comes to teach that the order in which the blood is given, does not invalidate.
The Kli Yakar proffers a reason as to why Moshe changed the order of the giving of the bloods, in a homiletic exposition: We can say, that it was said (Eichah Rabba), that Hashem said to Bnei israel:’Return to Me,’ first, and afterwards, ‘I will return to you’ - and the assembly of Israel responded: We do not have the strength to return first, rather You begin, as it says:’Bring us back to You’, and only then:And we shall return.
In this manner, we can say that the lintel alludes to Hakadosh-Baruch- Hu, who is high above all, and the two doorposts, which support the lintel, are the merits of the Avot and the Imahot.
Therefore, Hashem wanted to give credit to the righteous: ’And first give on the doorposts’ - and then ‘on the lintel’, to say, that the righteous Avot and Imahot should start; but Moshe said:’Reach for the lintel’ first, ‘as we have no strength to begin'.
The Alshich Hakadosh brings the saying of our Sages, that:The lintel and the two doorposts allude to the three Avot: Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov.
To understand this, let us note that Moshe, added the mention of the hyssop, which Hashem had not said to him.
This, because Moshe opined, to count as a merit to Bnei Israel the merits of the Avot, Hashem commanded giving the blood on the two doorposts and on the lintel, the two doorposts alluding to Yitzchak and Yaakov, and the lintel alluding to Avraham.
Why did Hashem do so, to start with the doorposts, and not the lintel? Because of the paucity of the merits of Bnei Israel at this time, it was necessary to start from the bottom upwards, as only in this way, could they hope to attain the top.
Moshe therefore said: I will do this, so that they, from themselves, merit to attain the top, as they will thereby merit abundance, this by initially uniting the three Avot together by the Mitzvah of the blood, by ‘You shall take a bundle of hyssop’, its three stems as against the three Avot - and by they being bound together to be dipped in the blood, this would be a preparation to immediately reach to the top, to enable them, at the outset, ‘to reach to the lintel’.
This is why Moshe said:’והגעתם: ‘and you shall reach’, and not ונגעתם: ‘and you shall touch’, as by doing as we have said, from the outset they have a connection with the lintel, to attain the merit of Avraham, which could not be achieved had the union not been made.
And you, because of the paucity of your merits, do not ‘leave the entrance of’ your ‘house’, as only the merit of the blood will prevent the destroyer from smiting you.
Rav Elya Lopian, on our Rashi, asks: Since all is revealed before Him - as to whether or not those in the house had performed the Mitzvah of the pessach offering - what need was there for the merit of the blood having been given on the lintel and the doorposts?
To answer this, let us recall an earlier instance recorded in the Torah:(VaEira 8:21-22) ’Pharoah summoned Moshe and Aaron, saying: Go and sacrifice to your G-d in the land; Moshe answered: It is improper to do that, for we will sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians to G-d our Lord. Will we sacrifice the deity of the Egyptians before their eyes, and they will not stone us?’.
We do not find that Pharoah replied to this, so presumably he admitted Moshe’s words.
We can now understand the Mitzvah of giving the blood on the doorposts and on the lintel, that Hashem commanded that Bnei Israel to perform in Egypt - was to test the completeness of their Emunah in Hashem, this being an extension of the earlier commandment, to take and slaughter the pesach offering, the Midrash commenting on this ‘taking’: Withdraw your hands from Avodah Zara.
What is the relevance of this, at this point?
Based on what we have brought, the answer is simple: by taking and slaughtering the ‘deity’ of Egypt, in their sight, they were clearly withdrawing from their avodah zara - and showing their faith in Hashem.
After the slaughter of the pesach offering, they continued with the Mitzvah of giving the blood on the doorposts and the lintel - as to which we find differing views in the Mechilta, as to whether the blood was given on the inside of the house - or on its outside, as Rabbi Yitzchak said, ‘so that the Egyptians should see it, and their insides curdling'.
This was the sign of merit to Bnei Israel, on withdrawing from Avodah Zara - and cleaving in Emunah, to Hashem.
This mesirut nefesh, not to fear the Egyptians, under whose rule they still were, and - despite this - to mock their deity, and them, and to anger them, was the sign which led to the destroyer passing over their houses.’
We have till this point understood that the blood that was placed on the doorposts and on the lintel was the blood of the pesach offering, which had been slaughtered, the meat of which was eaten, as the korban pesach.
However, Rashi brings the Mechilta on our Parasha, offering a different understanding
:’They’ - Bnei israel - had no Mitzvot in which to be engaged to merit to be redeemed, as it says:(Yechezkel 16:7)’And you were naked and bare’, and so they were given two Mitzvot: the blood of the pesach offering, and the blood of the milah, that they all were circumcised that night, as it says:(there 6) ’Wallowing in your bloods’: two bloods -in the merit of which, the prophet continues: ’In your bloods you shall live, in your bloods you shall live’, as it says (Zecharia 9:11) ’And as for you, because of the blood of your ברית: Covenant, I sent your prisoners free from the waterlesss well.’
Rav Dovid Hofstedter wonders: Did Bnei israel in Egypt not have any Mitzvot, so that Hashem felt compelled to give them these two new Mitzvot - pesach and milah - in the merit of which they were redeemed from Egypt?
Had they not already been commanded to observe the seven Noachide Mitzvot, and the Mitzvah of the gid hanasheh? What, then, did the two Mitzvot of the bloods add, to merit redemption ?
More surprising, did our Sages not teach that Bnei Israel had other merits, which was the reason for their redemption, ‘that they did not change their name, or their language, and were not tale-bearers, and abstained from immorality' - why, then, did Rashi write that they had no merits for them to be redeemed?
We have to, therefore, say that true, they did already have Mitzvot - apart from that of the two bloods - but they were all as individuals, and not as a nation, as we find that, until the exodus from Egypt, they were not called ‘a nation’, but only were individuals
This changed with the exodus, with the creation of the new entity of ‘עם ישראל: ‘the nation of Israel’, as our Sages praise Hashem for taking ׳גוי מתוךֶגוי׳: a nation from the midst of a nation - thereby choosing the seed of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov to be a nation for him, as we read (Va’era 6:6-8)’I will free you from the oppression of the Egyptians...I will took you to Myself as a nation’.
To merit this, their existing merits did not suffice, as they were merits as individuals, and there was therefore a need for other merits, in the nature of merits of the clal, distinct from the other nations, and united together, as ‘Hashem’s nation’.
To this end, Hashem gave them the two Mitzvot - of pesach and of milah - uniting them as a separate nation, with its own Emunah, and stamp of enslavement, as will become clear.
The pesach offering came to disengage them from the idol worship of Egypt - not just ny the offering, but by the very act of taking the sheep - the deity of Egypt, to sacrifice it in the sight of the Egyptians, as an offering to Hashem, a clear rejection of the avodah zara, which they had worshipped themselves.
The Mitzvah of milah also separates us from all other nations, marking their servitude to Hashem, in their bodies, as it is in their minds.
This is the purport of Rashi’s comment, that they were not, at this point, engaged in Mitzvot which merited their redemption- they did not have Mitzvot which would elevate them from individuals, to become ‘Hashem’s nation’, and be redeemed.
These two Mitzvot - the pesach offering, and the milah - are the only two Mitzvot, for which the failure to perform is כרת: ‘exclusion from the nation’, which is - from what we have brought - readily understandable, , as these two Mitzvot are what define a Jew, as Hashem’s servant, as they were given to us, so that we should become ‘Hashem’s nation’, and whoever nullifies them, disconnects himself from the community of Israel, and from our G-d.
As the prophet says, by these two Mitzvot - the ‘two bloods’ - we merit to be His eternally:’In your blood, you shall live, in your blood, you shall live’
The Netivot Shalom adds: The redemption from Egypt had two parts: the actual redemption from our enslavement to Egypt, AND the choice by Hashem, of Israel, to be His nation and portion.
In the affliction of the First-Born, there were elements of both of these: on the plain level, to afflict the first-born, leasing to the redemption from their oppression, and - at the same time - as the Torah relates:(Beha’alotcha 8:16) ’Since the day I smote all the firstborn in the land of Egyot, I have sanctified them for Myself’: that at the very same time, two things occurred: I smote the Egyptian firstborn, and also, ‘sanctified them for Myself’: that Bnei Israel became the ‘chosen people’.
This is the meaning of ‘the blood shall be a sign for you, on your houses’; clearly, this had no relevance to smiting the firstborn, but as to the choice of Bnei Israel, an internal sign was necessary to know and to verify who was a Jew, who was worthy to belong to the chosen people - and, so too, which was a Jewish home whose dwellers were worthy of this high honor.
The prophets whose words we have brought, teach that by these two Mitzvot - these two bloods - we were chosen to be Hashem’s nation.
We might say that the blood of the pesach offering alludes to Emunah, that on that night of Pesach, the השגחה פרטית: the Divine Providence, on every house, distinguishing between those of the Egyptians, and those of Bnei Israel; and the blood of the milah alludes to קדושה: sanctity - they being the foundations of Jewishness, and on which the Jewishness of every Jew, depends, determining if he is truly worthy of being counted as a member of the ‘chosen people’.
A parting gem, from Haktav veHakabalah: The need for further Mitzvot, so that Bnei Israel should merit redemption, indicates that there were in fact matters which precluded redemption - as our Sages point out: that there were idol worshippers amongst Bnei Israel, in Egypt.
Hashem’s Will was that they be purified, and, to this end, gave the Mitzvah of the pesach offering, by which Bnei Israel would show absolute proof that they had done Teshuva, by slaughtering the deity itself, that they had served.
As a sign of the complete love, and that there is no fear in his heart, of any worry from outside forces, in fulfilling the will of his Beloved, Hashem commanded that they perform three things in the sacrifice of their deity, in the sight of the Egyptians, without regard to the inherent danger in doing so - that the Egyptians might not stand idly by, on seeing the ‘outrage’, and, with this, they not desist from from doing as commanded — and, further, that they then bring the offering they have slaughtered, through the throngs, to their houses.
This, after the slaughtering having been performed with great fanfare, in the sight of all members of the family of the offerer, and yet do so with no fear of the Egyptians; further, again, that the consumption of the slaughtered offering, be at a festive meal, and the blood of the offering of their deity being placed on the doorposts and lintel of each house, to be seen by every passer-by, indicating to them, that at that moment, their deity is being eaten.
Despite the obvious danger in doing so - from the Egyptians - they nevertheless performed the Will of their Master, and did not allow fear to enter their hearts.
They will thereby show that they have done Teshuva fully, and have cleaved to Hashem, and rejected the Avodah Zara completely.
This is what the blood on their homes signifies:their faithfulness to Hashem, which awakened His mercy, that they not be afflicted by the destroyer.
This would spare them from the fate of the Egyptians, which, in fact, they also merited, as they too, had served the Avodah Zara.
This accords with the view of Rabbi Yitzchak - in the Midrash - that the blood was on the outside of the houses - not, as the other view, that holds that it was on the inside - so that it should be seen by the Egyptians, and their innards should curdle.’
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/403197
No comments:
Post a Comment