The Ten Generations of Kindness and the Sending of Isaiah

Once I was sitting in the great house of study in Jerusalem, and a certain disciple came and asked me a matter as a son asks his father, and said to me: For what reason were the earlier generations distinguished from all the generations, that their days were many and they prolonged days and years? I said to him: My son, for this they prolonged years — so that they could perform acts of lovingkindness with one another. From where do you know that it is so? Go out and learn from the first ten generations: Adam, Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah. Adam came into the world; Seth his son came after him; they said to Seth, Serve your father — he fed him and sustained him and provided for him. Seth came into the world; Enosh his son came after him; they said to Enosh, Serve your father — he fed him and sustained him and provided for him. They said to Enosh, Serve your father's father; Enosh said to them, I am not obligated to him. Enosh came into the world; Kenan his son came after him; they said to Kenan, Serve your father — he fed him and sustained him and provided for him; they said to Kenan, Serve your father's father; Kenan said to them, I am not obligated to him. And so on until Noah. Noah came into the world; they said to him, Serve your father — he fed him and sustained him and provided for him; they said to Noah, Serve your father's father — he took it upon himself and fed his father's father and all his ancestors who were alive at that time. And not only that, but he would go out and protest with words all those hundred and twenty years before the Flood came. Therefore the verse came and told concerning him for the generations that he was righteous, as it is said (Genesis 7:1), "For you I have seen righteous before Me" (a variant: "Noah was a righteous man, blameless"). From here they said: Merit is brought about through one who is meritorious, and liability through one who is liable. And by this measure for all the families of the earth, whether for Israel or for the gentiles. From here they said: The prime of a person's life is one hundred and twenty years, and afterward he comes to the world to come in great joy. And thus they said: The day that Adam died, they made it a festival and a day of feasting and joy. And likewise there was joy in the world for three things: for the angel of death, and for the evil inclination, and for sitting in the privy. And he said to me: My master, for what reason do you rejoice in the angel of death? I said to him: My son, were it not for the angel of death, what would we do for our Father in heaven? Go out and learn from the first ten generations, that the Holy One, blessed be He, poured upon them good as a foretaste of the world to come, and they arose to destroy the whole world. And he said to me: My master, for what reason do you rejoice in the evil inclination? I said to him: My son, were it not for the evil inclination, all that honor would not come to Israel. From where? When they go up to Jerusalem on the festivals, as it is said (Exodus 23:17), "Three times a year all your males shall appear," just as we are destined to go up and bow down three times a year to the King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He, as it is said (Zechariah 14:16), "And it shall be that everyone who is left of all the nations that came against Jerusalem shall go up year by year to bow down to the King, the LORD of hosts, and to celebrate the festival of Sukkot." And when they are walking on the road, they will say each man to his brother, What offering shall we bring up in our hands? Are not the silver and gold His, the precious stones and pearls His? What offering shall we bring up in our hands? Immediately they go and bring the children of Israel in great honor, as it is said (Isaiah 66:20), "And they shall bring all your brothers from all the nations as an offering to the LORD, on horses and in chariots and in litters and on mules and on camels, to My holy mountain Jerusalem, says the LORD, as the children of Israel bring the offering in a pure vessel to the house of the LORD." And if they find among the children of Israel one a year old or two years old, the princesses nurse him; and if one ten years old or fifteen years old, the kings raise them, as it is said (Isaiah 49:22-23), "Thus says the LORD, Behold, I will lift up My hand to the nations and raise My banner to the peoples, and they shall bring your sons in their bosom and carry your daughters on their shoulder; and kings shall be your foster fathers and their princesses your nursing mothers; with faces to the ground they shall bow to you and lick the dust of your feet." And when they are walking on the road they will embrace and hug and kiss them and lick the dust of their feet, as it is said, "and the dust of your feet they shall lick." And then all Israel will be righteous, and the Holy One, blessed be He, will remove the evil inclination from them, and they will come to Scripture and to Mishnah and to learning and to proper conduct and to doing the will of their Father in heaven. He said to me: My master, what is the matter of sitting in the privy? And I said to him: My son, the Holy One, blessed be He, is destined to redeem Israel from among the gentiles and bring them the days of the son of David and the redemption, and these three things will be removed from them forever, as it is said (Song of Songs 1:13), "A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me, between my breasts he lodges." And when we recall these three things, we bless and praise and magnify and sanctify our Father in heaven. And he said to me: My master, tell me, how many prophets prophesied to Israel? I said to him: My son, forty-eight prophets prophesied to Israel. And he said to me: My master, and how is forty-eight different from forty-five or from fifty? I said to him: My son, corresponding to the forty-eight cities of refuge that were given to the Levites. And the Sages said that the prophets diminished nothing at all from what is written in the Torah and added nothing at all to what is written in the Torah, but they are all clear to one who understands and upright to those who find knowledge. And to what is the house of Israel comparable in this world before their Father in heaven? To a king of flesh and blood who has many sons and servants. He arose and built many houses and many palaces and many open spaces without end. The king raised a matter in his mind and said, I will test my servants and my sons: who is it that loves me and fears me, and who is it that fears me but does not love me? What does the king do? He arises and builds an alley four cubits by four cubits, and makes within it a courtyard four handbreadths by four handbreadths, and makes within it a small wicket gate that opens into great open spaces, to receive through the small wicket gate the face of the king. And the king's sons and his servants come and stand in the courtyard and in the alley, and the king knows in his mind who loves him and fears him, and who fears him but does not love him. The one who loves and fears the king pains his body and enters through the small wicket gate that opens into the great open spaces to receive the king's face; and the one who fears the king but does not love him stands in the courtyard and in the alley and does not pain his body to enter through the small wicket gate. So the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Israel: My children, what have you done? I came to receive your face, and you did not come to receive My face, as it is said (Song of Songs 8:13), "You who dwell in the gardens," and it says (Isaiah 43:8), "Bring out a people blind though it has eyes, and deaf though it has ears." "Bring out a people blind though it has eyes" — these are the unlearned who have proper conduct and the other commandments and keep themselves far from robbery and from every ugly thing. "And deaf though it has ears" — these are the Torah scholars who gave themselves over to Scripture, to Mishnah, to laws and to aggadot; and of these it is said (Isaiah 42:7), "to open blind eyes, to bring out the prisoner from confinement, those who sit in darkness from the prison house." And he said to me: My master, how is Isaiah son of Amoz different from all the prophets, that he prophesied all the good things and all the consolations to Israel more than all the prophets? I said to him: My son, because he accepted upon himself the yoke of the kingdom of Heaven with joy more than all the other prophets, as it is said (Isaiah 6:8-11), "And I heard the voice of the LORD saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? And I said, Here am I, send me." And it is written after it, "And He said, Go and say to this people, Hear indeed but do not understand, and see indeed but do not know; make the heart of this people fat and its ears heavy and its eyes shut, lest it see with its eyes and hear with its ears and its heart understand and it turn and be healed." And it says, "How long, O LORD? And He said, Until cities lie waste without inhabitant." And it entered the mind of Isaiah that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not desire the repentance of Israel — God forbid. A parable: to a king who had an only son in a province; he sent a messenger to him and said to the messenger, Slaughter for my son many oxen and many sheep and feed my son much meat and give my son much aged wine to drink, and be lazy in the work of the field and in the work of the irrigated field. And all this, why? So that the king's son not go out with you to do work, and the king his father come and find no satisfaction of spirit from him. But the king — the Holy One, blessed be He — knows that Isaiah did not give a fitting reply in its place. Surely the One who said (Zechariah 2:8-9), "Jerusalem shall be inhabited as open towns from the multitude of people and beasts within her, and I will be to her, says the LORD, a wall of fire around, and for glory I will be in her midst," and likewise said (Zechariah 8:4-5), "Old men and old women shall yet dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, each with his staff in his hand from the multitude of days, and the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets" — He would say to Isaiah (Isaiah 6:11), "Until cities lie waste without inhabitant and houses without people." Surely a person should know before whom he stands and before whom he speaks, and know what he says, and know what the matter is that he speaks, when he stands and speaks before one greater than he. And the Sages taught: Do not appease your fellow at the hour of his anger. And he said to me: My master, in how many years did Isaiah prophesy all those good things and consolations that he prophesied to Israel? I said to him: My son, had Israel repented out of their love, the Holy One, blessed be He, would have built them the last Temple immediately at that hour. And all the more so that the Holy One, blessed be He, would embrace them and hug them and kiss them and seat them in His bosom forever and ever.