On the dictum that the wicked, even in their lifetime, are called dead (Column 205)

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With God’s help

On the Saying that the Wicked Are Called Dead Even While Alive

(Booklet ‘Adding More Vanity,’ sec. ‘The Wicked’)

In honor of Shabbat Zakhor, as I sit by the rivers of Babylon, weeping and laughing over my dwelling, it occurred to me to write a few crumbs from my many innovations, to benefit the public with mountains hanging upon a tempest, for the Lord is not in the tumult. All the usual witticisms on ‘mourning and with covered head’ are, of course, well known, and so, lest I depart from the path of our masters, I said to myself: bend low and let us pass on, and I too will add my portion in this. May it be His will that I say words acceptable before those who sit in this study hall and among the rest of the populace in every place, and may my lips continue speaking while I am yet fully alive, for the righteous in their death are called alive. And with this I begin, with God’s help, my Rock and my Redeemer. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall declare.

A. Regarding the matter that Haman hurried home, mourning and with covered head, our rabbis explain (Megillah 16a) that his daughter took a chamber pot and threw it on her father’s head; when she lifted her eyes and saw that it was her father, she fell from the roof to the ground and died. This is the meaning of ‘and Haman hurried home, mourning and with covered head’: mourning for his daughter, and with covered head because of what had happened to him.

And it is well known what people ask: why does the verse state that he was mourning before his head was covered, when this is the reverse of the actual sequence? The learned world explained this on the basis of Bava Kamma 17b: if one threw a vessel from the top of a roof and another came and broke it with a stick, the latter is exempt, for we say to him, ‘You broke a broken vessel.’ And Tosafot, s.v. ‘Zarak,’ ad loc., wrote that it is a simple logical distinction between one who throws a stone at a vessel, in which case the vessel is not broken until the actual breaking, and one who throws the vessel itself, in which case it is already a broken vessel from the outset. Accordingly, the verse is beautifully resolved: Haman was a mourner from the moment his daughter began to fall from the roof, for she was already as good as dead from the outset; but his own covered head took effect only when it was actually covered, like an arrow shot at a vessel. As is well known, many praised this excellent reasoning; fortunate is the eye that has seen all this, for our soul has longed merely to hear it.

B. True indeed, after kissing the holy soles of the feet of the great luminary of the age, long may he live, and with sealed lips at that, I still cannot refrain, with fear and trembling, from noting a powerful objection I have heard raised against this. For in Sanhedrin 59a we learned that there is nothing forbidden to a gentile but permitted to a Jew, and Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (Pri Etz Hadar) asked against this from the law of a convulsing animal, which is forbidden to the descendants of Noah but permitted to a Jew (see Hullin 121b). He answered that the case of the convulsing animal is one where slaughter had already cut through the majority of the two requisite organs, and therefore for a Jew it is considered slaughtered and permitted, because with regard to a Jew we follow legal status; but with the descendants of Noah we follow factual reality, and so long as breath remains in its nostrils it is considered alive for them.

And there is yet further support for this rule from the words of the rabbi of Israel known in the vernacular as J.B., of sainted and holy memory, in his book Halakhic Man (and some say it should read: The Ways of the Holy Grandfather), where he elaborated and deepened with his rapid pen in describing how the halakhic man who sees a spring is really seeing an impure object that has become purified, and when he sees sunset he sees only the law governing one who immersed that day, and so forth. Once again we see that a Jew follows law and not reality, and this is excellent indeed.^[1]

And once we have merited this principle, a great difficulty arises regarding this matter of ‘mourning and with covered head.’ As is well known, Haman was a mighty and powerful gentile, and therefore his mourning could take effect only from the moment his daughter actually died, since with respect to him we follow reality and not law (and from this it follows that his daughter was not already dead from the moment she began to fall)^[2], and this was only after his own head-covering (which likewise takes effect only when actual, obviously), and thus the question returns to its place.^[3]

They further asked from Ketzot HaHoshen, sec. 390, subsection 1, who ventured into this novel matter and renewed that the Rosh disagrees with Tosafot and holds that there is no difference between throwing a stone and throwing the vessel itself.^[4] If so, according to his view the old difficulty remains: why does the verse state that mourning preceded the covering of the head?^[5]

C. Given the force of the question, it seems proper to preface the discussion with what we hold: that the wicked are called dead even while alive. The book Death Has Climbed Through Our Windows, sec. ‘The Wicked,’ asks: from where did our rabbis derive this rule? It would seem that they were troubled by our very question according to the Rosh, namely, that the covered head would begin only when the chamber pot actually struck him, and if so his mourning must have taken effect before the impact itself. Necessarily, Haman was already a mourner while his daughter was still fully alive, and from here we have gained the rule that the wicked are called dead even while alive. Accordingly, mourning indeed came first and only then the covered head, even according to the Rosh.

Yet this too presents a double difficulty. First, in the passage in Megillah, why did they need the death of his daughter in order to explain Haman’s mourning, if he was already mourning during her lifetime? Second, this very notion that a wicked person is called dead while alive is itself a legal status and not a reality, and we have already seen that with gentiles we follow reality and not law, so once again the loaf has fallen into the pit. These difficulties require a craftsman and the son of a craftsman to untie them. Therefore I said to myself: gird your loins like a man; and where there is no craftsman, be a craftsman’s son. And if I stumble, my colleagues will rejoice over me and say that the smallest among them was struck down (cf. Sanhedrin 91a: ‘You have defeated only an ordinary fellow among us’).

D. It seems proper to preface this with the following inquiry: regarding the wicked after they die, are they considered alive or dead? As of now I have not found our rabbis discussing this. At first glance one might think that if in their lifetime they are called dead, then in their death they are called alive, for that would be their rectification, obviously. However, from the fact that we say that the righteous in their death are called alive, it would appear that the wicked in their death are called dead. I later saw that one may infer this from the very wording of the saying itself: the wicked are ‘even’ in their lifetime called dead, implying that after death it is obvious that they are dead. (Indeed, the wisest of men already said, ‘And I praised the dead who have already died more than the living who are still alive’ [Eccl. 4:2].) I then found it explicitly in Tanchuma at the end of Berakhah, where it says explicitly as follows: ‘Rather, these are the righteous, who even in their death are called alive, as it says, “Benaiah son of Jehoiada, son of a living man, of great deeds, from Kabzeel” and so forth (II Sam. 23:20). But the wicked, in both their lives and their deaths, are called dead, as it says, “And you, slain wicked one” and so forth (Ezek. 21:30). And it also says, “By the mouth of two witnesses or three witnesses shall the dead be put to death” (Deut. 17:6). Is there then a dead man who is liable to another death? Rather, a wicked person in his lifetime is considered as dead.’ Thus we see that the wicked are called dead both in their lives and in their deaths.

But this is, of course, very difficult. It is well known that the moment of death is but an instant, at the transition from life to death. If so, it requires inquiry with respect to these wicked people: when exactly is the moment of their death? For with regard to them there is no transition at all from life to death, since at first they are dead and now they are dead.^[6] This is all the more difficult in the above Tanchuma, which asks, ‘Is there a dead man who is liable to another death?’ and concludes from here that a wicked person in his lifetime is considered dead. But if he is dead, how can he incur another death? Still, we do indeed find in Maimonides, Laws of the Foundations of the Torah 5:1 and 5:4, who wrote in his holy words that one who gives up his life for a transgression that is not among the three cardinal sins thereby incurs liability for his own life. Once again we see that there is death and the departure of the soul even for the dead, and this is the meaning of the verse ‘free among the dead.’ We have now merited that his pure source is the above midrash, though all this still requires further examination.^[7]

It would seem, then, that one must distinguish between a wicked gentile and a wicked person who is a member of the covenant from our own chosen people, whose very distinction is itself his wickedness (for even the sinners of Israel are as full of commandments as a pomegranate). For above we saw that among Jews we follow law, and therefore for them a wicked person in his lifetime, who is considered dead, truly is as dead, because we follow law. But among wicked gentiles we follow reality and not law, and therefore their wicked person is considered alive, obviously.

Accordingly, our original question was justified: since Haman was a gentile, his mourning should take effect only from the moment his daughter actually died. But this is not so, for one may inquire what is the status of a wicked gentile in the eyes of a Jew. From the gentile’s own standpoint he is considered alive, for in factual reality he is alive in every respect, since with regard to him the criterion is factual reality and not legal definition. But the Jew who sees him certainly regards him as dead, for he follows law. Blessed is He who chose them and their teaching, for reality itself is vanity in our eyes, since Israel stands above the stars, as is well known.

And now it is clear what death means with respect to the wicked. It is true that the Jews know that this wicked man was already dead from the outset, but how are the gentiles to know that the wicked fall under the category of the dead? Therefore actual death is decreed upon them, so that the gentiles too may know that they are wicked people who are called dead, obviously. Yet even this is not enough, for how will the gentiles know that their wicked were already dead while still alive? Therefore it seems that from the moment the wicked man dies, the matter is revealed retroactively that this wicked man had already been dead from the time of his birth. And even a gentile, with his clouded fleshly eyes, can see this: for a wicked man is born on condition that he die, and anyone who says ‘on condition’ is as though he had said ‘from now’ (see Nazir 11a and elsewhere).

And once we have merited this, one may say that Haman was in mourning while his daughter was still fully alive. Thus our question, why we needed her death if while alive she already counted as dead, is now beautifully resolved. For indeed Haman himself did not know that she was dead while still alive, but the one who reads the Megillah, even in a foreign tongue, is presumed to be a Jew, and therefore for him it is obvious that Haman was in mourning even before his daughter died. And as for why our rabbis expounded Haman’s mourning from the death of his daughter even though while alive she was already dead, it is because she had to die so that Haman himself, according to the view that he was a gentile, would understand that he had in fact already been in mourning before his head was covered, by the rule of ‘from now on retroactively.’

E. And now we have attained an understanding of the matter of Haman’s daughter. In her own status, while alive she counted as dead; but for the gentiles, who follow reality, she was fully alive in every respect until she actually died. Accordingly, Haman himself was not a mourner until her actual death. But the Jew who reads the Megillah, with his crystal eyes, does not see reality at all, since for him it is null like the dust of the earth; he stands only beneath the awe of law, and therefore it is obvious to him that the legal status of mourning had already fallen upon Haman while his daughter was still fully alive. And although Haman himself was a gentile, with a gentile head and ‘their idols are silver and gold,’ and did not know that his daughter, though she was walking about, nevertheless had the legal status of one dead in every respect, like those zombies who are walking dead, we righteous readers of the Megillah certainly know that already at that time the law of mourning had taken effect upon him. And once she died, Haman too came to know that his daughter had been dead while still alive, ‘from now on retroactively.’ In this way everything is beautifully resolved, and room has been left for me to distinguish myself.

The Rose of Jacob exults and rejoices that He has not made our portion like theirs nor our lot like that of all their multitude, whose idols are silver and gold, who have eyes yet do not see; whereas we have crystal eyes, which do not see material reality at all, for it is as dust to us, and only law enlightens our eyes. Where the gentiles see a spring, we see a person who immersed that day; when they see a bite, we see goring; and what is alive for them, as in the case of a priest and a convulsing animal, is dead for us; and when they see ‘a time of trouble for Jacob,’ we see ‘from it he shall be saved’ (and they too admit it after the salvation, on a ‘from now on retroactively’ basis). And even if we die, we are comforted, for by law we are alive in every respect, and who can prevail against us? Fortunate are we in this world and the next. Blessed is He who chose us from all the peoples and gave us His Torah, and placed us in Noah’s ark to protect us from raging wind and storm, and from reality itself, and from every foe and tormentor, all of whom are nothing but vanity and a striving after existential wind, the work of human hands. Ascribe greatness to our God.

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Footnotes

1. This too explains the phrase ‘And Haman was pushed to his house,’ for pushing is a derivative of horn (see the opening of Bava Kamma), as it says, ‘He has raised a horn for His people.’ That is, in physical reality pushing (as also butting and crouching) is done with the body, and biting with the tooth; but in law all of these fall under horn. From here it follows that members of the covenant, when they see a push, understand with their crystal eyes (the discerning eye of a scholar) that it comes by way of horn, whereas the gentiles have eyes and do not see, and suppose that it is done with the body and therefore belongs to the category of foot.
2. Some have thus explained the verse, ‘If Mordechai, before whom you have begun to fall, is of the seed of the Jews’ (Esther 6:13): precisely because he is of the seed of the Jews, you are dead from the outset, already from the moment you began to fall before him; for had Mordechai been a gentile, you would be considered dead only from the moment your soul actually departed. This is among the wonders of our holy Torah, and there is nothing not hinted at in the Torah, obviously.
3. One could, to be sure, resolve this by saying that in factual reality the covering of the head did indeed precede the mourning, but we walk in our innocence (see Shabbat 88a on ‘the integrity of the upright guides them’) and know that reality is vanity and falsehood, and in truth mourning took effect first and only afterward came the covering of the head. But this is forced, and as will be simply explained below there is no need to force ourselves into this reading.
4. Although Tosafot explicitly wrote that it is a simple logical distinction, apparently the Rosh did not find it so obvious. And who is greater for us than Abaye and Rava in Bava Metzia 36b, who said to one another, ‘Any judge who does not judge like this is no judge at all,’ and two witnesses are deemed as trustworthy as Moses and Aaron. If even Abaye and Rava, supremely holy men, are not judges, then all the more so, the grandson of an a fortiori, that the reasonings of the Rosh and Tosafot were spoken only to be scattered to the wind (and they are not a work of skilled thought like winnowing, where the wind assists him; see Bava Kamma 60a, and this is not the place to elaborate).
5. By way of wit I heard that in the holy books it is stated that Esther was spoken with divine inspiration and given to be expounded, and it is no accident that the phrase ‘mourning and with covered head’ is worded so as to allude to the Rosh. The precepts of the Lord are upright, rejoicing the heart, and there is no joy like the resolution of doubts.
6. Anyone with understanding can readily see that the same question applies also to the righteous, who in both their lives and their deaths are called alive, and once again there would be no death with respect to them. But regarding the righteous one can indeed say that there is no death at all, and the embalmers embalmed for nothing, obviously; but this is not the place to elaborate.
7. So too one may ask from Berakhot 10a, where Rabbi Meir prayed concerning those hooligans in his neighborhood that they should die, whereas even while fully alive they were already dead. One may answer that hooligans are not actually wicked. But it still remains difficult, for if they are righteous, then even if they die they are still alive, and the prayer would again be in vain. Therefore it seems we must say that hooliganism is the human analogue of the koy, neither righteous nor wicked; accordingly, such people are alive during life and dead in death, and Rabbi Meir could properly pray concerning them that they should die.