Why Israel Cannot Rest While the Community Suffers

"And God spoke all these words, saying: I am the LORD your God" and so forth (Exodus 20:1-2). Blessed is the Omnipresent, blessed be He, who chose Israel out of all the work of His hands, and acquired them as a complete acquisition, and called them sons and servants to His name. Sometimes He speaks with them as one speaks with the many, and sometimes He speaks with them as one speaks with the individual. And why all this? Rather, because of the love with which He loves them, and because of the joy in which He rejoices over them; therefore He speaks with them in the singular and in the plural. Accordingly I used to say that each and every one of Israel is obligated to say: When will my deeds reach the deeds of my fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? For the fathers acquired this world and the world to come and the days of the son of David only because of their good deeds and the study of Torah. And thus the Sages taught in the Mishnah: Each and every one of Israel is obligated to say, "For my sake the world was created." And let a person not say in his heart to himself: The world to come is nothing but chaos and void, therefore I will walk in the stubbornness of my heart and eat and drink and take pleasure in this world, and afterward I will go out from this world. And if he does so, concerning him it says, "The fool said in his heart: There is no God" (Psalms 14:1). And if he is a scholar, wisdom and understanding are withheld from him; and if he has turned himself to other matters, concerning him Scripture says, "For the fool speaks folly" and so forth (Isaiah 32:6). And likewise let a person not see the many in distress and say: I will walk in the stubbornness of my heart and eat and drink and take pleasure from this world. And if he does so, concerning him Scripture says, "And behold, joy and gladness, slaying oxen and slaughtering sheep, eating meat and drinking wine: let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die" (Isaiah 22:13). What is written after it? "And the LORD of hosts revealed Himself in my ears: Surely this iniquity shall not be atoned for you until you die" (Isaiah 22:14). This far concerning the middling measure. But concerning the measure of the wicked, what is written? Scripture says, "Come, let me take wine, and let us fill ourselves with strong drink, and tomorrow shall be like this day, great beyond measure" (Isaiah 56:12). After it, what is written? "The righteous one perishes, and no man takes it to heart" and so forth (Isaiah 57:1). What is the matter of what is after it? "He shall enter into peace; they shall rest on their couches, each one who walks straight" and so forth (Isaiah 57:2). From here the Sages said: Even a sage of Israel who is like Moses our teacher, may peace be upon him, who was the father of the sages and the father of the prophets, and pious like Aaron his brother, should not say: Here I am in joy in my house, and peace be upon you, my soul. Rather, let him go out from his house and be with the community in their distress. Rather, with what does a person acquire his Father in heaven and the world to come? You must say that he acquires the Holy One, blessed be He, through good deeds and the study of Torah, and the Holy One, blessed be He, grants him in possession this world and the world to come and the days of the son of David. And these are the good deeds through which a person acquires the Holy One, blessed be He, and the world to come within them: through love and brotherhood and reverence and peace and friendship, and through truth and peace, and through humility, and through meekness, and through much study and little commerce, and through attending upon the sages, and through the disputation of the students, and through a good heart, and through worldly conduct, and through one's "no" being a "no" and one's "yes" being a "yes." We have learned from Abraham our father, that at the beginning of his deeds he had reverence before the Holy One, blessed be He, as it is said, "After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying: Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you" (Genesis 15:1); and one does not say to a person "Do not fear" except to one who is truly God-fearing. They told a parable: to what may the matter be compared? To a king who said to his son: My son, go and kill all these brigands, and take nothing of their money should they fall into your hand, so that they will not say, the king's son went out to kill these brigands only in order to take the money. Immediately he went out and killed all the brigands. On his return, his father went out to meet him and said to him: Blessed are you, my son, and may you have satisfaction in the world, for you did not benefit from their money at all. Now come with me and I will give you every precious vessel in the world, and precious stones and pearls from my treasure houses. And so to this Abraham our father was likened: at the time when he went out to kill the kings, on his return the king of Sodom went out to meet him, and it seemed to the king of Sodom that Abraham would not return anything to him, and he asked and said to Abraham: Please, give me the persons, and take the goods for yourself (Genesis 14:21-22). Immediately, "And Abram said to the king of Sodom: I have lifted up my hand to the LORD" and so forth, "that I will not take a thread or a sandal-strap, nor anything that is yours" and so forth; and I have already sworn that I will take nothing of all that is yours. And Abraham said to the king of Sodom: Fool of the world, do I need your silver and gold and all your precious vessels? I will cast everything before you to the ground, and you will see that I did not benefit from your money at all, "except only what the young men have eaten" and so forth. At that hour Abraham sanctified the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, and stood and returned all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah. Immediately, "After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision" and so forth, "your reward is very great." And likewise we have learned from Isaac, that at the beginning of his deeds he was truly God-fearing; for Isaac was seventy-five years old at the time when Abraham entered his eternal home, and Isaac said: Woe to me, perhaps there are not in me good deeds such as there were in my father; what will become of me before the Holy One, blessed be He? Immediately the mercy of the Holy One, blessed be He, was stirred upon him, and He stood with him at that hour, as it is said, "And the LORD appeared to him that night" and so forth (Genesis 26:24). And likewise we have learned from Jacob our father, that at the beginning of his deeds he had reverence before the Holy One, blessed be He, as it is said, "And he was afraid and said: How awesome is this place" and so forth (Genesis 28:17). And likewise we have learned from our first fathers, that at the beginning of their deeds they had reverence before the Holy One, blessed be He, as it is said, "And the people feared the LORD" and so forth (Exodus 14:31). From this you have learned that as the reward of the reverence with which our holy fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob revered the Holy One, blessed be He, and as the reward of the faith with which Israel believed in the Holy One, blessed be He, when they were in Egypt, they were redeemed from Egypt and the sea was split for them. And so it will be in the time to come, that the Holy One, blessed be He, will come and redeem Israel from among the idolaters, and bring them the days of the son of David and the days of our redemption, as it is said, "Writhe and labor, daughter of Zion, like a woman in childbirth" and so forth, "and you shall come to Babylon; there you shall be delivered, there the LORD shall redeem you from the hand of your enemies" (Micah 4:10). And all the iniquities of Israel they leave behind in Babylon, and they go up pure to the land of Israel, as it is said, "And I lifted up my eyes and looked, and behold, two women coming" and so forth, "and they lifted up the measure between the earth and the heaven; and I said to the angel who spoke with me: Where are they taking the measure? And he said to me: To build for it a house in the land of Shinar; and it will be established and set there" and so forth (Zechariah 5:9-11). And why is its name called Shinar? Because it shakes off (menaaret) all the iniquities from upon itself; therefore it is said, "to build for it a house in the land of Shinar." What is "and it will be established and set there upon its base"? Rather, this verse goes back and refers to the Tabernacle, which was hidden away in its place, and likewise the ark with the tablets that are within it, and the chest that the Philistines sent as a gift to the Holy One, blessed be He, and the rod of Aaron, and the flask of the anointing oil, and the jar of manna, as it is said, "And Moses said to Aaron: Take one jar and put there a full omer of manna" and so forth, "and Aaron laid it up before the Testimony to be kept" (Exodus 16:33-34), so that Jeremiah the prophet might say to them: This is the manna with which I fed Israel in the wilderness. The ark and the tablets within it, how so? As it is said, "These words the LORD spoke to all your assembly at the mountain out of the midst of the fire" and so forth (Deuteronomy 5:19); He said to them: These words are the Ten Commandments that I spoke with you at Sinai. And why was the Tabernacle hidden away until this day? Because the worthy ones made it with the freewill offerings of their heart, and it is hard before the Holy One, blessed be He, to let perish all that the worthy ones made with the freewill offerings of their heart; and in the time to come the Holy One, blessed be He, will come and dwell within it as in the first measure, as it is said, "Awake, north wind, and come, south wind" and so forth, "I have come to my garden, my sister, my bride; I have gathered my myrrh with my spice" and so forth (Song of Songs 4:16-5:1). (Another interpretation:) "I have come to my garden," these are the synagogues and study houses; "my sister, my bride," this is the community of Israel; "I have gathered my myrrh with my spice," these are Torah, Prophets, and Writings; "I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey," these are midrash, halakhot, and aggadot; "I have drunk my wine with my milk," these are the good deeds that the sages of Israel look forward to; and afterward, "Eat, friends, drink and be drunk with love."