Mountains of Mercy and the Great Depth of Judgment

"Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, Your judgments are a great deep" (Psalms 36:7). Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Ishmael said: With the righteous, who fulfill the Torah given from the mighty mountains, the Holy One, blessed be He, deals charitably like the mighty mountains, "Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains." But with the wicked, who do not fulfill the Torah given from the mighty mountains, the Holy One, blessed be He, is exacting with them down to the great deep, "Your judgments are a great deep." Rabbi Akiva said: With both these and those the Holy One, blessed be He, is exacting. He is exacting with the righteous and collects from them the few evil deeds they did in this world, in order to give them their full reward in the world to come; and He bestows ease on the wicked and pays them for the few good deeds they did in this world, in order to exact from them in full in the world to come. Rabbi [Judah the Prince] said: He likened the righteous to their dwelling and the wicked to their dwelling. The righteous to their dwelling: "in a good pasture will I feed them, and on the mountains" (Ezekiel 34:14). And the wicked to their dwelling: "thus says the LORD, on the day it went down to Sheol I caused mourning, I covered the deep over it" (Ezekiel 31:15). Rabbi Judah son of Rabbi said: "I caused mourning" — it is written "I caused to wither." A parable: one does not make a cover for a barrel of silver, gold, bronze, iron, tin, or lead, but of clay, each kind with its own kind. So the Holy One, blessed be He, said: Gehinnom is darkness and the deep is darkness and the wicked are darkness; let darkness come and cover darkness, "for in vanity it comes and in darkness it goes, and its name is covered in darkness" (Ecclesiastes 6:4). Rabbi Jonathan in the name of Rabbi Josiah reordered this verse: Your righteousness is upon Your judgments like the mountains upon the great deep. Just as these mountains press down upon the deep so that it does not rise and flood the world, so the deeds of the righteous press down upon calamity so that it does not come into the world. Another interpretation: just as these mountains have no end, so there is no end to the reward of the righteous in the world to come; just as the deep has no end, so there is no end to the measures of punishment of the wicked in the world to come. Another interpretation: just as these mountains are revealed, so the deeds of the righteous are revealed; just as the deep is hidden, so the deeds of the wicked are hidden. Another interpretation: just as these mountains are sown and yield fruit, so the deeds of the righteous yield fruit; just as the deep is not sown and yields no fruit, so the deeds of the wicked yield no fruit. Another interpretation: "Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains." Rabbi Yudah son of Rabbi Simon said: The charity You did with Noah in the ark was like the mighty mountains, "and the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat" (Genesis 8:4); and the judgments You did with his generation, You were exacting with them down to the great deep, "on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth" (Genesis 7:11). And not only that, but You remembered him; You did not remember him alone, but him and all who were with him in the ark, "and God remembered Noah and every living thing" (Genesis 8:1). Rabbi Joshua ben Levi went up to Rome and saw there pillars of marble wrapped in covers, in the heat lest they crack and in the cold lest they freeze; and he saw there one poor man with a reed mat beneath him and a reed mat over him. Of the pillars he recited, "Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains" — where You give, You give abundantly; and of the poor man he recited, "Your judgments are a great deep" — where You strike, You are exacting. Alexander of Macedon went to the king Katzia beyond the mountains of darkness. He came to a province named Carthage which was all women, and they came out before him and said: If you make war with us and conquer us, your name will go out in the world that you destroyed a province of women; and if we make war with you and conquer you, your name will go out in the world that women made war with you and conquered you, and you will no longer be able to stand before a king. When he left he wrote on the city gate: I, Alexander of Macedon, was a fool until I came to the province of Carthage and learned counsel from women. He went to another province named Africa, and they came out before him with golden apples, golden pomegranates, and golden bread. He said to them: Is gold eaten in your land? They said to him: Did you not have this in your own land, that you came to us? He said to them: I did not come to see your wealth; I came to see your justice. While they sat there, two men came for judgment before the king. One said: I bought a ruin from this man, and I cleared it and found in it a treasure, and I said to him, take your treasure, for I bought the ruin and did not buy the treasure. The other said: My lord, when I sold this man the ruin, I sold him all that is in it. The king called one of them and said: Have you a son? He said: Yes. And to the other he said: Have you a daughter? He said: Yes. He said to them: Go, marry them to one another, and let the two of them enjoy the treasure. Alexander began to wonder. The king said: Why do you wonder, did I not judge well? He said: Yes. He said: And had this case come before you in your land, what would you have done? He said: We would have removed the head of this one and the head of that one, and the treasure would have gone to the king. The king said: And does the sun rise upon you? He said: Yes. And does rain fall upon you? He said: Yes. He said: Perhaps there is small cattle in your land? He said: Yes. He said: May that man's spirit expire! It is by the merit of the small cattle that the sun rises upon you and the rain falls upon you; by the merit of the small cattle you are delivered. This is what is written, "man and beast You save, O LORD" (Psalms 36:7): man, for the sake of beast, You save, O LORD. Israel said: Master of the worlds, we are man, and like cattle You save us, for we are drawn after You like cattle, "draw me after You, let us run" (Song of Songs 1:4) — like cattle so are we drawn after You. To where? The school of Rabbi said: to the Garden of Eden, "they are filled from the fatness of Your house, and You give them drink from the river of Your delights [adanekha]" (Psalms 36:9). Rabbi Eleazar son of Rabbi Menahem said: it is not written "Your delight" but "Your delights," teaching that every single righteous one has a delight of his own. Rabbi Isaac said: the law of man and the law of beast. The law of man, "and on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised" (Leviticus 12:3); and the law of beast, "and from the eighth day onward it shall be accepted" (Leviticus 22:27).