God Forgives First So the World Can Stand

Blessed is the Omnipresent, blessed is He, who recognizes at the beginning what will be at the end, and declares from the beginning the end, from of old that which has been done, and knows what has been done and what is destined to be done, and looks toward good and does not look toward evil, who is rich and rejoices in His portion. And in His wisdom and in His understanding He created His world and prepared it, and afterward He created within it Adam and set him before Him, and He was examining closely to the end of all generations; and He foresaw that his descendants would provoke Him to anger. He said: If I keep for him the earlier debts, the world cannot stand. It is incumbent upon Me to pass over the earlier ones. And so He did. And whence may you know that this is so? When Israel were in the wilderness, they corrupted their deeds; He arose to pass over all that they had done, as it is said: "And the LORD passed by before his face, and proclaimed" (Exodus 34:6). Do not read "and He passed by" (vaya'avor), but "and He caused to pass over" (vaya'aver); this teaches that He caused all their evil to pass from before His face. Know that this is so: Mordecai, at the hour when Esther spoke with him improperly, he was angry with her. And these are the words she spoke improperly, when she said: "And I have not been called to come in unto the king," and so forth. He replied to her: "For if you altogether hold your peace," and so forth. And when she turned back and spoke with him properly, he assented to her words. And these are the words she spoke to him properly: "Go, gather together all the Jews." He caused all her [earlier] words to pass over, as it is said: "So Mordecai passed over" (Esther 5). And it says: "Who is a God like You, that pardons iniquity, and passes over the transgression" (Micah 7:18). "Your eyes did see my unformed substance," and so forth (Psalms 139:16). What does this teach? The Holy One, blessed be He, is destined to sit in His great house of study, and the righteous sit before Him, and He says to them: My children, a certain generation did Torah thus, and I dealt charitably with it thus; and a certain man did Torah thus, and I dealt charitably with him thus; but I do not remember his iniquities, and they do not rise upon My heart, as it is said: "Remember not the former things," and so forth (Isaiah 43:18). And it says: "And the former things shall not be remembered," and so forth (Isaiah 65:17). "The days were fashioned, and not one of them" (Psalms 139:16) refers to the Sabbath day for Israel. How so? A man does labor all six days and rests on the seventh; he becomes reconciled with his children and with his household members. Again, a man does labor in the presence of his enemies all six days and rests on the seventh; he forgets all the sorrow he had. Such is the way of a man: a good day makes him forget a bad day, and a bad day makes him forget a good day. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Israel: Have I not written for you in My Torah, "This book of the Torah shall not depart out of your mouth" (Joshua 1:8)? Even though you do labor all six days, the Sabbath shall be made entirely Torah. From here they said: A man should rise early and study on the Sabbath, and go to the synagogue and to the house of study, and read in the Torah and study in the Prophets, and afterward go to his house and eat and drink, to fulfill what is said: "Go your way, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart" (Ecclesiastes 9:7). For the Holy One, blessed be He, has no rest except with those who do Torah alone, as it is said: "For all these things has My hand made," and so forth, "but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembles at My word" (Isaiah 66:2). From here they said that a man should read so that he will have it held in his hand, so that shame and disgrace will not overtake him at the hour when they say to him: Stand and recite the Scripture you have read, and recite the Mishnah you have studied. And so it is set forth explicitly in the Writings through David, king of Israel: "O LORD, in the morning shall You hear my voice," and so forth (Psalms 5:4).