Between October and Purim: “Rejoice with Trembling” (Column 633)

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With God’s help. Between October and Purim: Rejoice with Trembling

In recent months, in the wake of the events of Black October, the heart is broken. As Purim approaches, it is torn between sorrow and joy. The Divine Presence and the congregation of Israel weep in secret over those who are no longer with us, the living and the dead. Indeed, in recent days a discussion has arisen as to how Purim ought to be celebrated this year. This one weeps and that one weeps, and we are still servants of Ahasuerus. Therefore, until now I found no strength in my heart to send you, as I have done in years past, a Purim gift-package of Torah. But now I thought that even so it is proper to gird up my loins like a man and enter among the mountains; for it is not in heaven, and we pay no heed to heavenly voices, nor to their echoes and after-echoes, to the sorrow in the heart and the joy in the heavens; and it is time to cast truth to the ground.

A few days ago I was asked to send the package before your Purim, so that you might feast your eyes on it in advance. So, forgive me, I have burdened you with one more column, day after day from the mountain of dialectical constructions. May it be God’s will that by the merit of these words of Torah, which deal with the rule of ‘rejoice with trembling’ and are themselves spoken in the mode of ‘rejoice with trembling,’ it be said to the Angel of Death, ‘Enough’; and to lamentation, ‘Be gone, and do not return.’ May ruin and destruction no longer be seen within our borders; may widows have their lot restored and orphans a roof over their heads; and may the children return to their border speedily, soon. And this is my beginning, with God’s help.

A. One text says (Ta’anit 11a): The Rabbis taught: When Israel dwells in distress and one of them separates himself, the two ministering angels who accompany a person come and place their hands on his head and say: This so-and-so, who separated himself from the community—let him not see the community’s consolation. Another teaching: When the community is in distress, a person should not say, ‘I will go to my house and eat and drink, and peace be upon my soul.’ Seemingly, the meaning of the Gemara is that one may not separate from the ways of the community, and one must feel pain in their pain. True, Maimonides wrote (Laws of Repentance 4:2) that for one who separates from the community the gates of repentance are locked before him. I have always expounded this to his credit: one who separates from the ways of the community does not stumble into their silliness and folly and does not sin, and therefore merits not to need repentance at all. From here it follows that a person is obligated to separate from the community and from its inanities. This is what I once heard R. B. Povarsky expound (the head of Ponevezh; I have no idea which of the two, nor does it especially interest me): among the four species, the lulav, myrtle, and willow are bound together. He asked why the citron, though held tightly alongside them, is left outside the basket. To this he explained, with impeccable reasoning, that the citron represents the righteous, possessed of Torah and good deeds, and they must separate themselves from the community and not enter the basket with it. Then they will merit 310 worlds and the gates of repentance will be shut before them; and then no creature can stand in their section (because of the locked doors). The words were delightful as at their giving, and their truth was evident. Some attribute to this the approach of our ultra-Orthodox brethren, who tremble at the word of God and separate themselves from the ways of the community: when the public suffers, they themselves are not distressed; they do not shoulder the burden with the rest, but leave them to carry it alone; and thus they merit 310 worlds and the locking of the gates of repentance before them. When I was a child I said by way of homily that these ‘gates of repentance’ are really the gates of the Women’s Court, for the allegorists have already expounded that since our aforementioned brethren are outside the category of war, like women, they are exempt from the reading of the Zakhor portion, just as women are exempt, as stated in Sefer HaChinukh. These are ancient matters; still, lest I leave the page blank, I add that on this basis ultra-Orthodox women enjoy a double exemption, by virtue of being women and by virtue of being ultra-Orthodox. This nicely resolves the astonishing words of our master, author of the responsa Like Finds Like (sec. 227, ‘Male’), who discussed the case of an ultra-Orthodox woman who underwent sex-reassignment surgery and inclined to the view that from now on he is subject to conscription, since every law of a male now applies to him and he has also exited the category of ultra-Orthodox woman. And according to the one who holds that exact concurrence is possible, these two legal effects come simultaneously; and there are those who acquire their world in a single moment. True, one prohibition does not take effect upon another prohibition; in Yevamot 33 we find an opinion that this is so even when they come simultaneously—’whatever does not take effect one after the other does not take effect even simultaneously’—but all agree that one dispensation can take effect upon another, whether sequentially or simultaneously. These matters shine as brightly as Cerberus on the River Acheron, that is, the Styx, on the way to Hades, and are as clear as a mourner’s black garment. True, Maimonides seems to have taken the one who separates from the ways of the community in a negative sense; and any yeshiva student of a single day will at once understand that these are truly astounding words. In any case, how did that Sephardi fellow dare go against the authoritative Torah judgment of all the genuine greats of the generation, may they live long? Let the matter be buried and never mentioned. Yet I have now seen that this too appears in Ta’anit there, that one should not engage in marital relations during years of famine; and once again we see that there is indeed an idea of not separating from the community.

The community, then, and the matter is exceedingly puzzling. But if this is the received tradition, let us accept it; and thanks to the faith in sages that is within us, we have merited the talmudic rule that one may not separate from the ways of the community, but must suffer in their distress and mourn in their mourning—not in accordance with the view of the true sages of Israel, but with that of the false ones, Heaven forfend. This, then, is one text, which imposes on us the duty to grieve over Israel’s suffering.

B. But another text cries out and says: ‘When Adar enters, joy increases’ (Ta’anit 29a), and especially on Purim. If so, seemingly we are obligated to rejoice on Purim together with all Israel, and it requires investigation how we are to grieve in their distress and at the same time rejoice. True, it is accepted that one does not marry women on a festival because one does not mingle one joy with another (Mo’ed Katan 8b). Seemingly, if there is an obligation of joy on Purim, we ought to prohibit marrying on Purim. We may therefore revisit what is stated in Shulchan Arukh (Orah Hayyim 696:8), that it is permitted to marry a woman on Purim; and the commentators there write that Purim is not like a festival. Seemingly, from here there is a complete and decisive proof that there is no obligation of joy on Purim, and the initial question never arose. But this may be rejected: perhaps there is no joy in marrying a woman, and it may well be that there is an obligation of joy on Purim. For so I heard from my esteemed friend, the true sage R. M. Weiss of Bnei Brak, that marrying women is not as good as the bachelors imagine, but neither is it as bad as the married men say. If so, there is indeed no mixing of one joy with another, and all is in order. Yet according to this it is puzzling: if there is no joy in marrying women, why as a matter of law does one not marry them on a festival? Perhaps, just as one does not mingle one joy with another, so one should not mingle one sorrow with another; but this still requires investigation. Be that as it may, whether according to the one who says there is no joy in marrying a woman, or according to the one who says that Purim is unlike a festival and on it one may mix joy with joy, we have obtained the rule that there is indeed a great commandment to rejoice on Purim, as stated explicitly in the Ta’anit passage there. And now our question returns to its place: how are we to fulfill this and at the same time not let go of that?

C. From here the heart wonders: how can these two texts go together unless they were appointed to meet? How can a person rejoice on Purim while at the same time being a full partner in the community’s distress? In truth, according to the view of our ultra-Orthodox brethren and all the genuine greats of the generation, this is no difficulty at all; but for us (= the false greats of the generation) it is difficult. The matter requires study, and it is a commandment upon us to establish falsehood firmly in place. I have now seen that this is an explicit verse in Isaiah (63:9-10): ‘In all their affliction He was not afflicted / He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them; in His love and in His pity He redeemed them, and He bore them and carried them all the days of old. But they rebelled and grieved His holy spirit, so He turned against them as an enemy; He Himself fought against them.’ From this written-and-read variation our Rabbis expounded (Sotah 31a): ‘And wherever it is written with lamed-alef, does it always mean not?’

Then what of the verse, ‘In all their affliction He was not afflicted,’ which is written with lamed-alef—would you say there too that He was not afflicted?

But it is written, ‘And the angel of His presence saved them’! Rather, it means both this and that. Thus we see that at the time of the community’s distress there is an aspect of ‘He was not afflicted’ in their affliction, and an aspect of ‘He was afflicted’ in their affliction, and both are true. Seemingly, the preferable state is ‘He was not afflicted,’ for then it is fulfilled that He redeems them, saves them in His love, and carries them all the days of old. Yet one may take a hatchet to this from the end of the verse: if they rebelled and grieved His holy spirit—so that He is afflicted in their distress—they thereby turned Him into an enemy who fights against them. If so, one who, in their distress, is in the category of ‘He was afflicted’ must himself also be in the category of ‘He was not afflicted,’ so that He not become their enemy. Therefore it seems that on Purim, when it falls in a time of distress, we must uphold both: the Jews are to stand for their lives and suffer with the community in the mode of ‘in their distress He was afflicted,’ and also separate from it and rejoice in the mode of ‘in their distress He was not afflicted.’ Thus there will be fulfilled in us (Ps. 2:11): ‘Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.’ As stated in Yoma 4b: ‘What is “rejoice with trembling”? Rav Adda bar Mattana said in the name of Rav: In a place of rejoicing, there must also be trembling.’

If so, according to the false greats of the generation, one may resolve that two laws were said regarding this Purim: joy and sorrow function together in mixed form.

D. Yet one may take a hatchet to this: if he is sad in his heart, how can he laugh and rejoice, and vice versa? How can a person be happy and sad at one and the same time? A similar objection may be raised about every pair of laws in the Torah: how can something be both A and B at once? Therefore, at first glance, this verse ‘rejoice with trembling’ would seem to speak only of one after the other, not of both at once. But I returned and saw that it is a whole Torah, and there is nothing not alluded to in the Torah; Moses is true and his Torah is true. Fortunate are you, Israel: before whom do you become confused, and before whom are you destined to render an infinitesimal accounting? And to sharpen the question we may invoke the accepted rule that ‘whatever does not take effect one after the other does not take effect even simultaneously.’ If so, by an a fortiori, the grandson of an a fortiori, whatever does take effect one after the other certainly does not take effect simultaneously—and this is obvious. It follows that if a person can be happy and afterward sad, that is only when they come one after the other. But when these two laws come together, there is nothing to them at all.

To explain the matter properly, let me preface with an innovation from a rabbinic article I wrote in my youth in the holy city of Brisk, the great city of God, a peaceful habitation, which before the woodcutter came upon it had many human beings and much cattle in it, like Nineveh, and I, the smallest of all, shepherded them all. For we find in the words of R. Shimon Shkop, who innovated in his essay on conditions (at the end of his novellae on Gittin), that a woman who received a conditional bill of divorce is both divorced and married at the same time. Seemingly this is astonishing: if she is married, how can she be divorced, and vice versa? In that article I explained that opposites are said of predicates, not of entities. A dish cannot be completely sweet and completely salty at the same time, but it can contain salt and sugar. Once it contains both salt and sugar, the result is the effect of both together, and its taste is like a lemon wafer: neither wholly salty nor wholly sweet, akin to a half-slave and half-free person, an androgynos, a koy, and the rest of the Talmudic zoo (as distinct from the Biblical Zoo). And there is no need to elaborate where one should be brief; give to the wise and he will become wiser still. So too here: a person can have reasons to rejoice and to be sad at the same time—happy because of Purim and sad because of Black October. But it still seems obvious that he cannot be both completely happy and completely sad.

And now the question rises and stands: how, then, can the law of Purim joy be fulfilled this year? It may be resolved by an innovation I proposed on the wings of my spirit: every law stated concerning the soul is not a law about a state, but a law about bringing about a state. When the Torah says to love the convert, it does not mean that we must love a person who is a convert, full stop. It means that we must love him because he is a convert. And there is a great practical difference for one who loves a person without knowing that he is a convert, or who does not love him because of his conversion: has he fulfilled the commandment of loving the convert? In my Column 22, and even more in my wondrous article on the commandments of emotion (which appears in the pamphlet The Laws of Asperger’s and What Follows from Them), I cited R. Yitzhak Hutner, who wrote that one does not thereby fulfill his obligation of loving the convert. We thus learn that the commandment of love is to love a given person because of a quality he possesses—that he is a Jew or that he is a convert—or to love the Holy One, blessed be He. I also showed there that the same law and the same measure apply to the commandment of joy. For in that same passage in Mo’ed Katan it is stated that one does not marry women on a festival, and this is derived from the verse ‘And you shall rejoice in your festival’ (Deut. 16:14), which they expounded as ‘and not in your wife.’ Thus we see that our Rabbis, from whom no secret was hidden, and who by the breath of their mouths revived the dead and clothed bones with skin and sinews so as to restore the spirit of the downtrodden, read the verse ‘And you shall rejoice in your festival’ to mean that the festival is not the time at which one must rejoice, but the cause of the joy. It follows that in the commandment of joy, as in the commandment of love, the commandment is to rejoice because of the festival, not merely to rejoice on the festival. Just as the commandment of loving the convert is to love him because he is a convert, and not merely to love a convert, so it is with all commandments of emotion. And this was written explicitly by R. Barukh Asperger in his pamphlet On Why Mountains Trembled and Earth Melted. Then the sea was stilled from its rage.

E. On this basis I explained at very great length—not my usual holy practice—in volume 11 of the series Talmudic Logic that a person can fulfill the commandment of love and the commandment of hate toward the very same person at one and the same time. This was by way of introduction to my great innovation against the words of Rav Kook and the Rebbe of Vizhnitz, two prophets who prophesy in one style, who wrote that it is preferable to stumble in groundless love than in groundless hatred. I, the small one, innocently thought it far preferable not to stumble in either. From here we have obtained the rule that one must hate the wicked, and it is important to fulfill this in practice as well. If so, toward a wicked Jew we are obligated to love him because he is a Jew, but also to hate him because he is wicked (and concerning this it was said, ‘Let sins cease, not sinners’; and so in Tosafot, Pesahim 113b, regarding ‘you shall surely help with the donkey of your enemy’; these are ancient matters). How can these two go together unless they were appointed to meet? How can two opposites reside in one thing? Can one love and hate the same person at the same time? Perhaps this itself is what caused those two golden worthies to err in their understanding of groundless love.

Some wished to resolve that there is no love and hate directed toward the person, but love toward the person and hate toward his deeds. But there I rejected these words thoroughly, with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, and showed with signs and wonders, clear as an egg, that in Jewish law love and hate are always directed toward the person, not toward his deeds or qualities. Later in my discussion there I explained that nonetheless it is possible to love and hate the same person at the same time: love of him from one aspect and hate of him from another. Note this carefully (and so too I showed there, in schematization—known as logical formalization—that our point here is not love for one aspect of the person and hate for another aspect of him. Love and hate are always directed toward the person as such, not toward different properties within him).

If so, this is love and hate of the whole person, yet the love is because of one aspect of him and the hate of that very same person is because of another aspect of him (and this is the secret of Peter Pan, for those who understand, since one must not exempt one aspect on account of the other aspect). This is not the place to elaborate, and whoever wishes to grow wise should turn southward toward that basket full of books of modesty, that golden vessel, the Rema of Lod, may he live long, humbler than any man on the face of the earth. We therefore learn that on this Purim the verse ‘Rejoice with trembling’ must be fulfilled in us. One must rejoice on Purim and at the same time be saddened by Black October; and as I have brandished my strong hand and shown, it is possible to fulfill both at once. And although both can exist one after the other, it has become clear to us that they can exist simultaneously as well. And the matter was wondrous. These are my humble thoughts.

From me, the undersigned, M.A. son of Netinah, signing in joy and in tears (and not in sheer exultation), and this is the secret of the verse ‘Do not rejoice, O Israel, with exultation like the peoples’ (Hos. 9:1), in the mode of Issachar within Leah, which is the secret of the holy beard—like that saying, ‘The Holy One speaks and Moses writes with tears’ (Bava Batra 15a), which the Vilna Gaon explains there as an expression of mixture. Its meaning is that joy and tears are mixed one into the other, and the tears of joy and the tears of grief are mingled with one another, in the mode of ‘Rejoice with trembling.’ And may the Lord wipe away tears from every face, and may it be said to the angel, ‘Enough’; and may there be enough of our troubles; and may the children return to their border speedily, soon.