My People What Have I Done to You and the Light Yoke of the Shema

"My people, what have I done to you, and how have I wearied you? Testify against Me" (Micah 6:3). Rabbi Acha said: Testify against Me and receive a reward; but do not testify against your fellow, lest you receive over it judgment and reckoning. Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachman said: In three places the Holy One, blessed be He, came to argue His case with Israel, and the nations of the world rejoiced. When He said, "Come now, and let us reason together, says the LORD" (Isaiah 1:18), the nations rejoiced and said: How can these argue their case with their Creator? Now He will wipe them out of the world. But when the Holy One, blessed be He, saw that the nations of the world were rejoicing, He turned it to their good: "Though your sins be as scarlet" (ibid.). The nations of the world were astonished: Is this a rebuke? Is this an argument? He came only to be reconciled with His children. And when the Holy One, blessed be He, said, "Hear, O mountains, the LORD's controversy" (Micah 6:2), the nations of the world rejoiced and said: How can these argue with their Creator? Now He will wipe them out of the world. But when the Holy One, blessed be He, saw that the nations were rejoicing, He turned it to their good: "My people, what have I done to you, and how have I wearied you? Testify against Me. My people, remember now what Balak king of Moab devised" (Micah 6:3, 5). And when He said, "The LORD has a controversy with Judah" (Hosea 12:3), the nations of the world rejoiced and said: Now He will wipe them out of the world. But when the Holy One, blessed be He, saw that the nations were rejoicing, He turned it to their good: "In the womb he took his brother by the heel" (ibid. 4). This is like a woman who was lodging a complaint against her son before a judge. When she saw that the judge was sitting and judging and sentencing men to death, she said: If I make known to this judge the offense of my son, he will put him to death now. What did she do? She kept pressing until he had finished his cases, and when he had finished his cases he said to her: What is this son of yours's offense against you? She said to him: When he was in my belly he kicked me. He said to her: And now does he do anything to you? She said to him: No. He said to her: There is no offense at all in this matter. The nations of the world were astonished and said: Is this a rebuke? Is this an argument, one after another? He came only to be reconciled with His children. "And how have I wearied you" (Micah 6:3). Rabbi Berekhiah said: This is like a king who sent his official proclamation to a province. What did all the people of the province do? They took it and stood on their feet and bared their heads and read it with awe and fear, with trembling and quaking. So said the Holy One, blessed be He, to Israel: My children, this recitation of the Shema is My official proclamation. I did not trouble you. I did not tell you to read it while standing on your feet or with your heads bared, but rather "when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way" (Deuteronomy 6:7). Another interpretation of "And how have I wearied you" (Micah 6:3). Rabbi Yudah son of Rabbi Simon said: The Holy One, blessed be He, said: Ten clean animals I handed over to you, three in your domain and seven not in your domain. These are in your domain: "the ox, the sheep, and the goat" (Deuteronomy 14:4). And these are not in your domain: "the deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the antelope" (ibid.). I did not trouble you. I did not tell you to climb the mountains and weary yourselves in the fields and bring before Me an offering from those not in your domain, but only from those in your domain that grow up at your stall: "When an ox or a sheep or a goat is born" (Leviticus 22:27).