The Secular and the Sacred – Rabbi Michael Abraham – Lesson 4

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So there was a contraction. I don’t care—fine, so the contraction that happened was partial, but it happened. Meaning, something changed relative to the reality that existed at the beginning. As far as I’m concerned, that counts as a contraction. I don’t care right now whether

[Speaker J] it was complete or not complete.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It doesn’t matter to say it wasn’t complete. I don’t know what “complete” even means. I said there was a contraction. The question is what counts as a contraction—you can argue about that—but there was a change relative to the state in which the infinite light filled all of reality. The Ari himself writes that after the light contracted, a trace remained inside; something did remain inside, but it withdrew. Fine. So the Hasidim claim that this whole business is only a metaphor: nothing withdrew, everything is exactly the same as it was. It’s just a metaphor, some illusion of ours, some way we look at things, however you want to define it. And the Mitnagdim claim no—that the contraction was literal, and at their head was the Vilna Gaon, who is basically the head of the Lithuanian beit midrash on this issue too, as on other things, though not in the method of learning; we talked about that once too. So he is understood as someone who disagrees with the Ari—rather, he argues against the Hasidim and says the contraction is literal. And regarding the Ari, that’s the dispute.

[Speaker I] But what remains inside the empty space? Is He still there, or did He withdraw completely?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, some trace remains, some sort of divine presence. Maybe I’ll talk about that later, though I’ve already talked about it, but I’ll connect what I’m saying here to what I already discussed. But it’s not what was there before. Something happened—that’s the point. So I’m not getting into the question of exactly what happened, because in any case I didn’t define what happened. I’m only claiming that there was some change relative to the state before the contraction. So that’s the claim. In that sense it’s a binary claim: either yes or no. There’s no room here for intermediate degrees. So here, once Rabbi Dessler says that the author of the Tanya and Nefesh HaChayim say the same thing, you’ve erased the dispute between Hasidim and Lithuanians. Because this is really—maybe I’ll explain a bit more—why this is the dispute between Hasidim and Lithuanians. The Hasidim basically claim that the whole world is holy in all its areas and contexts—everything. There are things where maybe it isn’t clear to us why they’re holy; maybe we need to uncover the holiness in them. But basically it’s there. The problem is just ours, that we don’t see it. But it’s really there. We’re living in some kind of movie, some illusion. The analogy people always bring in this context—in Nefesh HaChayim too, but really everyone who deals with this talks about it—is filthy alleyways, where one does not mention God’s name in filthy alleyways, also as a matter of Jewish law—in the bathroom or something like that, or a bathhouse. So the claim is: what does that mean? That in filthy alleyways the Holy One, blessed be He, is not present? Of course that’s the analogy; the point is also ordinary profane places. Is He only in the Temple? Outside the Temple He isn’t there? And there He dwells, right—the Shekhinah, the dwelling place of the Holy One, blessed be He, is the Temple. So does that mean He’s there and in all other places He isn’t? Or less so? So the Hasidim say no, there’s no difference. Basically all places are the same. The difference is only from our perspective. The difference is only in how we look, some kind of illusion. That’s what is called contraction not literally understood. And that has a lot of implications, because the Hasidim now—what do the Lithuanians do with this conception? They build a kind of elitism. Meaning, we’ll focus on the areas of holiness and ignore or reject the other areas. For example, that’s why we’ll sit in the study hall, learn Torah, deal in Noah’s Ark, be inside Noah’s Ark. The study hall is Noah’s Ark, protecting us from the storms outside; outside, the storm is raging. And outside everything is abandonment, places one has to distance oneself from; they’re filthy alleyways, basically. Meaning that outside, God basically is not present; He is present here, and our goal is not, heaven forbid, to get absorbed into the outside, so as not to involve ourselves in negative things, but only in holiness. Because they understand holiness to exist in one place and not in others. In contrast, the Hasidim argue exactly the opposite. The Hasidim say you need to go outside in order to reveal to ourselves and to the world that there too it is holy. And therefore, for example, the wagon drivers—they’re perfectly fine, exactly like Torah scholars, as long as they are attached to the tzaddik, and through him they create a connection to the divine. And that is the role of the tzaddik: to help them basically become like a mikveh that connects, through contact. Meaning that once they pass through the tzaddik, they basically become exactly like him. And then there is no difference between an ignoramus and a Torah scholar, or between one wagon driver and another. The main thing is intention. And therefore, for example, that shepherd who plays a flute—on Yom Kippur—it’s exactly the same as someone who prays. He whistles. He whistles, okay, right, so it’s exactly the same thing. Or there’s also the story with the flute. The whistler is just some ignoramus because he doesn’t know the prayer. The one playing the flute is someone who desecrated Yom Kippur, so that’s much stronger. He is “mechallel” the flute in honor of the Holy One, blessed be He, and “mechallel” is a double meaning, right? The story about Tekoa? You don’t know the story about Yeshivat Tekoa? No. Yeshivat Tekoa—how does Yeshivat Tekoa operate? It’s this kind of Hasidic-style yeshiva that deals with music and all that, Chumi. Right, he was there too. So the story says that in Tekoa, Yom Kippur arrives, everyone takes out his flute and guitar and starts playing. And there was someone standing there without any musical instrument, so everyone asked him: tell me, what are you doing? I mean, how are you desecrating this day? And that’s the antithesis of the original story. In any case, the claim is that the difference between Hasidism and the opposition to it is the question of how you relate to profane areas, optional areas, not to mention filthy alleyways, meaning negative areas. There are optional areas, there are negative areas, and there are sacred areas. Profane, sacred, and impure, let’s say in our terminology. We talked about plus one, minus one, and zero. Okay? From the Hasidic perspective there is no such thing. This whole map exists only from our point of view, as a kind of illusion. In the world itself, everything is divine. There is nothing besides Him—literally. Fine, the contraction is not literal. And the Hasidim say no—the contraction is literal, the Lithuanians, the Mitnagdim, the contraction is literal. God contracted Himself and is present in places where there is holiness; in other places He is less present, not present—fine, there are different formulations—but at least less present. Okay? And of course that has many practical implications, the question of how I relate to people who deal in areas not defined as engaging in holiness—not sacred functionaries, not people learning Torah or engaged in halakhic ruling or serving as judges or things that deal with Torah in its narrow sense. So you understand that in this sense, for example, Religious Zionism continues the Hasidic conception, because it basically says that we want to engage also in the broader contexts of the world. We see value in revealing the holiness, the divinity there. That’s all Hasidic jargon; it comes from the Hasidic world. Yes, even Rabbi Kook comes from Chabad roots, as is known.

[Speaker J] But that’s only if it’s a subject in itself. Noah’s Ark or everything is holiness, and beyond that there is also the need to connect it there. I understand. But if the Lithuanians—sorry—the Lithuanians say Noah’s Ark, to distance yourself from everything else, and the Hasidim say everything somehow just needs to be revealed, then why—what about connecting?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Connecting is revealing—what do you mean? That’s Hasidic. Revealing the holiness by connecting the profane to the sacred, and as a result the profane becomes sacred. That is exactly the Hasidic conception. The wagon drivers connect to the rebbe, and then they become a body of holiness exactly like him.

[Speaker J] You could say that I’m with a Hasidic Noah’s Ark; instead of being a wagon driver, I’m Abraham.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, so that’s exactly the difference. So I’m saying, if you say that, then you’re a Hasid. The Lithuanian is Noah, and the Hasidim are Abraham.

[Speaker J] Why can’t the Lithuanian say: I’ll take my Noah’s Ark and use it to bring divinity into other places as well?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He can say that, but then he’ll be a Hasid.

[Speaker J] Between bringing in new divinity and revealing it, there are two different concepts.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Bringing in new divinity—making it holy.

[Speaker J] Connecting it to holiness. You can transform it, make it so that there will be there—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, not reveal a holiness that is already there, but expand the domain of holiness. Fine. So really, there may be people like that among the Hasidim, maybe there are people like that among the Lithuanians, but the hardcore definition of Lithuanians versus Hasidim is these two. There may be people who say, okay, an imperialism of holiness—spread it, not expose things already there—but that isn’t on the map here. The map here of Hasidim versus Mitnagdim is defined this way. Okay?

[Speaker J] I think that’s actually the work we’re doing here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] This imperialism. Fine, so apparently on this map you’re in the second or third category. But that’s the map; it’s defined that way.

[Speaker J] And again, the indwelling—“Make Me a sanctuary and I will dwell among them”—to cause the divine presence to dwell, that’s a concept that very much exists.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now the question is how you understand that. The Hasidim say: make Me a sanctuary and reveal that I already dwell among them. And the Lithuanians say: make Me a sanctuary and I will dwell among them—that’s true when I’m here, but not in filthy alleyways and not in profane places.

[Speaker J] A sanctuary is something meant to make it dwell in the surrounding area too.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] To make it dwell in the surrounding area—again, the question is how you understand “make it dwell in the surrounding area.” Does that mean to reveal what in any case is already there around it, only hidden? Or to expand it, as you suggested? So expanding it, to my mind—that’s neither Hasidism nor the opposition to Hasidism. That’s something third, which everyone needs. Fine, so you think everyone needs that, so you’ve identified a third category. Fine. In any event—no, I’m not saying that ironically.

[Speaker J] There is room for that conception; it’s also in the plain meaning.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but the Hasidim and the Mitnagdim don’t understand it that way. So maybe that’s the plain meaning, maybe there is such an approach, but I’m talking about them. And what they say is one of these two things. So now, that means that a great many of the everyday disputes, the practical conduct, really begin with this abstract theological dispute: whether the contraction is literal or not. And in our language, what I’m basically saying is that the dispute is over whether there is an actual boundary between holiness and profane or impure things, or whether that boundary exists only in our eyes, but in reality there is no such thing in the world. And that’s why it connects to our topic, because our topic is the question of whether holiness is really a separate category, or whether holiness is just a name that stands behind the commandment and behind everything else as well. So in fact, this is the theological clarification standing behind the discussion I’ve been making until now. So this is what he says. Yes—already in the first generation after the Ari, who revealed to us the secret of contraction, there were disagreements concerning contraction among people of renown from one extreme to the other, apparently in their books, and the dispute continued afterward as well. And it concerned two main matters: whether the contraction is literal or not—that is one question, withdrawal or concealment; and whether the contraction is only in the light or also in the luminary. All right? Is there a lamp and the lamp emits light? Fine? If we are speaking about the infinite light, there is the source from which the infinite light emerges and there is the infinite light. That is the light and the luminary. Now, one could say—and by the way, he says it very briefly here, but there were those who wanted to argue that the dispute is actually only an apparent dispute, whether the contraction is literal or not, because the whole question is what exactly the infinite light is. The concept of infinite light is a kabbalistic concept, but what does it mean? Is the infinite light the Holy One, blessed be He? Or is the infinite light a revelation of the Holy One, blessed be He, while He Himself is not on the map? Meaning, there are those who understand the kabbalistic worlds, as we discussed once: infinite light, then the world of line and contraction, Adam Kadmon, Atzilut, Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah. Okay? Now all those worlds are worlds that basically proceed, as it were, from the Holy One, blessed be He, to us. We are the world of Asiyah, the actual, tangible, physical things. Now the question is: who is at the other end? Is the Infinite—the highest world, the Infinite before the contraction—the Holy One, blessed be He? Is the infinite light the Holy One, blessed be He, or not? The Raavad writes in his commentary on Sefer Yetzirah that the infinite light is the will to reveal Himself. Meaning, it is not the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself, but if all the worlds we are talking about are revelations of the Holy One, blessed be He, then this is above that: the infinite light is the plan to reveal Himself, but it is not He Himself. He Himself is outside the map. He is not on the map of the worlds. He is something else—He is the owner of the map. And then, when you say that the contraction is literal, it depends what you mean. If you’re talking about the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself, then He never contracted. If you’re talking about the light, which is His will to reveal Himself, there there was a contraction. And then that means there is no dispute. The whole question is simply what you’re talking about. Meaning, if you are talking about the light, then there was a literal contraction; if you are talking about the luminary—the lamp, the Holy One, blessed be He, in the analogy—then there was no contraction there, and there is no dispute at all. That’s what he means here by the light and the luminary. Yes—whether the contraction is only in the light or also in the luminary. Okay? Now these are two independent questions, the way he presents them: whether the contraction was literal or not literal, and whether it is in the light or in the luminary. Meaning, it could be literal or non-literal in the light; it could be literal or non-literal in the luminary. Fine? So really there are four conceptions of contraction. And now he lays out the four conceptions. And one can speak here of four views: A, the contraction is literal and also in the essence itself. There was a literal contraction in the very essence of the Holy One, blessed be He—in the luminary, not only in the light. And the proof of those who hold this view: how can one say that the King is present in a garbage dump, heaven forbid? “Garbage dump” is of course an expression for filthy alleyways. Meaning, how can it be that the Holy One, blessed be He, dwells in places of impurity? Impurity means there is no holiness there, that the Holy One, blessed be He, is not there. Therefore it must be that even in the luminary, not only the light, He is not present in filthy alleyways. B, the contraction is literal, but only in the light. Meaning, in the luminary there is no contraction; in the light there is a contraction, and it is literal.

[Speaker C] When people say that the infinite light really withdrew, then is the luminary present everywhere, or is the luminary not present?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Apparently—I don’t know, that’s a question, I don’t know. Apparently He is above place, not that He is in every place. And then that also answers the proof in favor of claim A. Claim A says: how can it be that He is in filthy alleyways? The answer is: He is not there; He is nowhere. He is not in any geographical sense, with coordinates. The contraction not literally understood, but also in the luminary—that is the third conception. And this is a more moderate conception: it is not literal, but in another sense it is deeper, because it applies also to the lamp, not only to the light. And D, the contraction not literally understood, and only in the light. This is the most moderate conception of all. Meaning, basically there was no contraction at all, even in the light, not only in the luminary. In the luminary, obviously there was no contraction, but in the light—even in the light there was no contraction. And what is called contraction is only not literal, that is, only some sort of metaphor. Now, the Mitnagdim in the days of the Alter Rebbe held the above-mentioned first view, as is known. The Mitnagdim said that the contraction was literal even in the luminary—that is the Mitnagdim. So here he defines the dispute between Hasidim and Mitnagdim very clearly. This is the sharpest place I know that deals with this. And they interpreted “There is no place empty of Him” to mean His providence—not that He Himself is present everywhere. He withdrew, but He oversees. That is the trace, if you like, the surrounding light, whatever; there are various names that connect here. And they said that the view that the divine essence is present everywhere contradicts the laws regarding filthy alleyways. Right? How can that be? In filthy alleyways the Shekhinah does not dwell, therefore one may not mention God’s name there, and therefore clearly there is contraction even in the luminary and literally so. And so on and so on, as was written in the proclamations and notices published in the time of the Baal Shem Tov and the Alter Rebbe—those of course were proclamations and pamphlets against Hasidism. Right, that these heretics are putting the Holy One, blessed be He, in filthy alleyways—how can that be? The whole polemic against Hasidism. And see also Shaar HaYichud VehaEmunah chapter 7, and Iggeret HaKodesh at the end of section 25, Iggeret HaKodesh. And it seems to me that in Beit Rebbe too there was printed a letter of the Alter Rebbe dealing with this. Fine, these are various Chabad sources. The position of the author of Nefesh HaChayim, whom your honored Torah scholarship mentions in his letter, is like the above-mentioned third view. What is the third view? The contraction is not literal, but also in the luminary. And we apply the metaphor of contraction to the luminary too, not just to the light. In that sense he goes further than the Hasidim, as we will soon see that they are view D, but he does not go as far as his teacher, the Vilna Gaon, who essentially held view A. And by the way, a lot of scholarship—scholars of Kabbalah also deal with this quite a bit: how can it be that Nefesh HaChayim, who is the leading disciple of the Vilna Gaon, on the most fundamental question in Kabbalah, actually follows a different view from the Vilna Gaon? I explained at the time that in my view he is not following a different view; it is the same view. And the above-mentioned third view—and in this he disagreed with his teacher the Vilna Gaon. He writes that explicitly here. And in general, it seems that Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin saw Chabad books, especially the Tanya, and was influenced by them, although I do not know this through conclusive proofs. And we talked about that—that the similarity really cannot be accidental. Meaning, I also think it is quite clear that he saw those books, and still he says very similar things. In my opinion he means something different; again, I explained that there. But as for us, we have only the above-mentioned fourth view. “Us,” of course, means the Hasidim, the disciples of the Baal Shem Tov and the Alter Rebbe. We have only the above-mentioned fourth view: that the contraction is not literal. And also, it is not in the luminary but in the light, and only in the lowest aspect of the light before the contraction, as explained in the books and writings of Chabad. Meaning, basically the Hasidim are D, Nefesh HaChayim is C, and the Vilna Gaon is A. All right?

[Speaker C] And who is B?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know; he doesn’t identify B here. All right? It seems to me that the early Shomer Emunim is B—Rabbi Yosef Ergas. It’s an introductory work to Kabbalah, where he writes that the contraction is not literal, but he explains it in terms of the light. Except that Rabbi Yosef Ergas is a bit problematic, because Rabbi Yosef Ergas identifies the light with the luminary. For him the infinite light is the Holy One, blessed be He; it is not the will to reveal Himself. So I don’t think that’s the correct interpretation. But okay, it’s true that the contraction was in the light, except that—for him the light and the luminary are the same thing; he does not make the distinction between light and luminary. “And in our times, when we have merited its light, and the tractate of contraction has been clarified at length, according to our level, and in many details, in the printed and manuscript books of Chabad Hasidic teaching, anyone who wants to know the matter of contraction, at least to a certain degree and with understanding and comprehension, has no other path than to study the above. And to be convinced of this, it is enough to compare what is said about it in other books—some of which apparently did not want to spell things out for whatever reason—with what is explained in Chabad books.” So basically he says: we are in view D, and view D is the view that minimizes the contraction the most. He qualifies it the most. Basically he says it is not literal and it is in the light. And he presents that here as the basic Hasidic idea. He does not say “this is my view” or “the Alter Rebbe’s view.” This is what the dispute was about. The dispute was over whether the contraction is literal or not, and whether it is in the light or in the luminary. Hardcore Lithuanian opposition says A: the contraction is literal, in the luminary, completely. All right? Hasidism is contraction not literally understood, in the light. All right? That is basically the extreme, with all kinds of intermediate positions. And as I said earlier, this connects to our topic because it says how we understand the boundary between holiness and the profane. Now I want to look at these things from a somewhat different perspective. Again, I’m handing out pages here—this is double-sided, by the way, so also… we may be short one or two pages, but it’s okay. And Hanukkah is already getting close, and these things touch on Hanukkah. We’ll have discharged our obligation of a Hanukkah Torah thought afterward. There is a very interesting point here that deals with the implications of this conception—obviously long before Hasidism and the opposition to it. We’re talking about the Hasmonean period, and then Nachmanides—that is, the medieval authorities. But you can see here that the dispute is an ancient one, and you can also see its implications. And this connects directly to our own times. By the way, I first heard this from Rabbi Shagar. I have to say that in his name; after all, I criticize him quite a bit, so this idea I heard from him. “The scepter shall not depart from Judah”—not personally, I mean he spoke about it and I… it was at some funeral I was at once, and he spoke; I don’t remember in what context. “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples”—that is the verse from Jacob’s blessing to his sons. So Nachmanides there—the famous Nachmanides—says this: “Its meaning is that the scepter shall not depart from Judah to one of his brothers.” Right? The Talmud expounds that the kingship is not moved away from Judah, meaning from the house of David, to other people. He says it is forbidden to take the kingship from the house of David; this is what “the scepter shall not depart from Judah” means. “Its meaning is that the scepter shall not depart from Judah to one of his brothers, for the kingship of Israel, the one who rules them, shall come from him,” meaning from Judah, not from someone else, “and one of his brothers shall not rule over him.” Right? Someone from another tribe cannot be king over Judah. “And likewise, the ruler’s staff shall not depart from between his feet,” meaning that every lawgiver in Israel in whose hand is the king’s signet shall come from him, for he shall rule and command all Israel, and the seal of royalty shall remain until Shiloh comes, and to him all the nations shall gather, to do with all of them according to his will—and this is the Messiah. For the scepter alludes to David, who was the first king who had a scepter,” meaning a staff, a royal scepter, “and Shiloh is his son, the son of David, the Messiah son of David, to whom the peoples shall gather.” What does “and the ruler’s staff from between his feet” mean? At first glance it sounds as if even the head of the Sanhedrin—the lawgiver, the one responsible for the judicial branch—must also be from the house of David. But that isn’t correct. I mean, it was so, and we talked about this once too, it was so from the Second Temple period onward. Why? Because Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi and Rabban Gamliel, from Hillel the Elder onward—Hillel the Elder was descended from David. And he was the Nasi of the Sanhedrin, and then all his descendants—Rabban Gamliel, Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, Rabban Gamliel II, Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel II, Rabbi, and that entire line—were descendants of the house of David, and they were heads of the Sanhedrin, not kings. But I explained this: originally there was a dual system. There was the system of the king, as Derashot HaRan explains in discourse 11, and there was the system of the Sanhedrin, and there were also two parallel legal systems. Now once the monarchy ended—yes, was wiped out—then royal authority flowed into the Sanhedrin. From then onward, the Nasi of the Sanhedrin functioned also, from our standpoint, as a king, to the extent that there was autonomy. So he was also considered king, basically. And therefore he too had to be from the house of David. But that is not because the lawgiver as such needs to be from the house of David. A lawgiver does not need to be from the house of David. Rather, once there is no king, the lawgiver is also king, so automatically he must be from the house of David. Fine. So there is the Exilarch, and Tosafot says that one is from the mother’s side, from the house of David through the mother, and the other is from the father’s side. In any case, then what is “and the ruler’s staff from between his feet”? So it doesn’t really mean that the Nasi of the Sanhedrin needs to be from the house of David—that’s an artificial result of the loss of the monarchy. Rather it means that the authority to be Nasi of the Sanhedrin, or really the authority to judge, is granted by the king. And that’s in the Talmud—the same Talmudic passage in tractate Sanhedrin that talks there about this competition between Babylonia and the Land of Israel, who exactly has the power to ordain people to judge throughout the world, in Sanhedrin 5 there, on “recognized as an expert for the many.” There you see that ordination in the professional sense is given by the Holy One, blessed be He. He ordained Moses, Moses ordained Joshua. Ordination comes from above, and every ordained sage ordains the next ones. But that ordination is only recognition of your professional authority. Who appoints you to be a judge, meaning that you have authority to judge? The king. You need authorization. You need certification from the professional, Torah authority side, and you need permission to judge, which is an appointment to office, and that comes from the king or the government. Which, by the way, is how every legal system works, every governmental system works. You have to study law, you get certified by legal professionals, and who appoints you to be a judge? Just because you finished university doesn’t make you a judge. It only means they say: okay, you know law. Now what? Now the government or parliament can come and give you the authority to be a judge, appoint you to the office of judge. So judicial authorization always has two tracks that must happen in parallel: the professional track, to see that you’re qualified, that you have the necessary knowledge, and governmental authorization, which gives you the authority. So in Jewish law too that’s how it works. And what the verse says—“The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet”—that is why the scepter is from Judah; that truly has to be from Judah. But the lawgiver is only “from between his feet.” Meaning the lawgiver is someone to whom Judah gives authority to be a lawgiver, because the king is the one responsible for giving him that authority. Because in the end, the king is the source of governmental powers in Jewish law in all areas, including the area of halakhic ruling. “And in my opinion,” says Nachmanides, “the kings who ruled over Israel from the other tribes after David were violating the intent of their father and transferring the inheritance, and they relied on the words of the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite, who anointed Jeroboam and said, ‘I will afflict the seed of David for this, but not forever.’” That is, one can deviate from crowning Davidic kings, but not permanently. Okay? So that’s what they relied on when they appointed a king. They said: fine, the son of David will come at some point, but meanwhile we’ll put things in order here. “And when Israel persisted in crowning over themselves king after king from other tribes, and would not return to the kingdom of Judah”—there is nothing as permanent as the temporary, as is well known, and that’s true today too—“they violated the command of the elder and were punished for it, as Hosea said: ‘They made kings, but not through Me.’” Meaning they crowned someone who did not receive permission from Me; I gave that permission only to the house of David. So they violated the command of the elder. By the way, it seems from here that they are only violating the charge of Jacob our father. It is not so clear how far this is really an outright prohibition in the formal sense. “The scepter shall not depart from Judah,” as far as I remember, is not counted by the enumerators of the commandments as a prohibition. Meaning it is not a formal halakhic prohibition. But there is a charge of Jacob our father that you are to give the kingship to Judah, and if you take it and give it to someone else, you are violating the command of the elder.

[Speaker C] Okay, but why tie the destruction of the kingdom of Israel—there were a number of sins there—specifically to the fact that they violated Jacob’s charge?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not the destruction of the kingdom of Israel—not the destruction of the kingdom of Israel. This is speaking about the Hasmoneans.

[Speaker C] No, in this passage it’s the destruction of the kingdom of Israel.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, sorry, right. Okay, I don’t know—that’s what he said. In a moment I’ll get to the Hasmoneans, because that’s our issue. “And this was the punishment of the Hasmoneans, who reigned in the Second Temple period, because they were supremely pious, and had it not been for them, Torah and the commandments would have been forgotten from Israel. Even so, they were punished with a severe punishment. For the four sons of old Hasmonean”—Mattathias, right?—“those pious ones who ruled one after another”—who are the four? There were five. Excluding Shimon. And all four died in war against the Greeks, and only Shimon remained. “Those pious ones who ruled one after another, despite all their bravery and success, fell into the hands of their enemies in war there by the sword. And in the end the punishment reached what our rabbis said in Bava Batra 3: ‘Whoever says, I come from the house of the Hasmoneans, is a slave.’” Meaning, anyone who said “I am from the house of the Hasmoneans” is known to be a slave, because from the original house of the Hasmoneans no one remained. So he was apparently a slave of the house of the Hasmoneans. That is of course an allusion to Herod—that all of them were cut off because of this sin. “And even though among the seed of Shimon there was punishment because of the Sadducees”—Shimon, whose line was cut off, that’s no surprise, because in the end Shimon really was a sinner. Right, he inclined to the Sadducees, or his descendants did, or he himself did. But in any case, the fact that his descendants were wiped out—that I can understand even without Nachmanides’ explanation. That is punishment for the bad things they did. But what about all his brothers? How could it be that of Mattathias, the great righteous man, and his four sons, supremely pious men who gave their lives to fight against the Greeks and for purifying the Temple and all those things—what remained in the end? “Whoever says I am from the house of the Hasmoneans is known to be a slave.” Nachmanides—how can that be? So he says we have to say: “And the whole seed of Mattathias the righteous Hasmonean was cut off only because they reigned though they were not from Judah and from the house of David.” How do we know they were not from the house of David? Priests, right? They were from the tribe of Levi, not from the tribe of Judah. “And they removed the scepter and the lawgiver entirely. And their punishment was measure for measure, for the Holy One, blessed be He, made their slaves rule over them, and those slaves cut them off.” You really should have been subjects of the house of David. Instead, you crowned yourselves over the house of David. So the Holy One, blessed be He, made your slaves kings over you, and they destroyed you. Fine—that is basically a punishment of measure for measure. So Nachmanides says that even though they were supremely pious, the very fact that they crowned themselves, as priests, to be kings—people not from the house of David—that itself justifies their annihilation. That is his explanation for why they were wiped out, and it is quite far-reaching. Again, I assume that if you appoint yourself military commander in wartime, that should not be a problem. They were apparently the people who rose to the task. But the fact that they crowned themselves as kings, not only as military commanders, and the fact that this continued afterward and passed to their sons—that the Hasmonean house became a royal dynasty—that it was not only temporary kingship, but became a dynasty, that implies that there was already some problem at the root with those first four who died during the war itself. And there you could more easily say they appointed themselves as kings because they needed to manage the war. Fine, so Shimon I understand—but what do you want from them? Apparently even there: be chief of staff, don’t be king. Meaning, the fact that it continued afterward as a royal dynasty says that from the very beginning there was probably some deviation there. “And it is also possible that there was another sin in their kingship, because they were priests. For they were commanded, ‘You shall keep your priesthood for everything of the altar and for what is within the curtain, and you shall perform the service; I give your priesthood as a service of gift.’ They should not have ruled, but only served the service of God.” So Nachmanides gives an additional explanation. It may be that the great punishment was not simply because they were from another tribe, not Judah, and crowned themselves; rather, the explanation is that they were priests who crowned themselves. Specifically with priests there is a more severe problem if they make themselves kings than if it were just someone from the tribe of Gad or Zebulun. “And I saw in the Jerusalem Talmud, tractate Horayot, chapter 3, halakhah 2: ‘One does not anoint priest-kings.’ Rabbi Yehuda Antoria said, because of ‘The scepter shall not depart from Judah.’” Why does one not anoint priest-kings? Because they are not from the tribe of Judah. “And Rabbi Chiya bar Abba said: ‘In order that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his sons, in the midst of Israel’”—that is a verse in Deuteronomy—what is written immediately afterward? What verse comes right after it? “The Levitical priests shall have no portion or inheritance,” etc.—that is the next verse. “Behold, they taught here that one does not anoint kings from the priests, the sons of Aaron.” Meaning there is a juxtaposition in the Torah between the section of the king and the section of the priest. And from here Rabbi Chiya bar Abba learns that the Torah is basically teaching us that it is forbidden to make priests kings. Now, if that were the only problem—if the priest is not from the tribe of Judah—we already learn that from the verse “The scepter shall not depart from Judah.” So why do I need this juxtaposition? This juxtaposition comes to say that someone who makes a priest into a king has done two problematic things. First, he made a king who is not from the tribe of Judah—that is like all the other tribes. Second, a priest-king is even more problematic. That is a problem in its own right. And that is learned from the verse, from this juxtaposition. That says more. A king from Judah is “the command of the elder,” as he calls it. But here it is an actual prohibition.

[Speaker C] Could it be that these are two opinions? I understood it as two opinions. I mean, I understood that there’s one opinion that the problem is only any king who is not from the tribe of Judah, and there’s—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] an opinion that the problem is only with a priest. No, I think the problem with priests exists as well, simply. “The scepter shall not depart from Judah”—I don’t think anyone disagrees with what is learned from that.

[Speaker C] Why? I mean, what source is there for that besides Nachmanides? And in the first opinion here, what source is there for that?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “The scepter shall not depart from Judah” is in the Talmud, not Nachmanides. There—what? That the kingship is not taken from the tribe of Judah. The royal scepter—that’s the plain meaning of the verse. “And he first explained that this is for the honor of Judah.” Right? “Behold, they taught here that one does not anoint kings from the priests, the sons of Aaron. And he explained first that this is for the honor of Judah, that authority should not depart from that tribe. And therefore, even though Israel may establish over themselves a king from the other tribes according to the need of the hour, one does not anoint them, so that they should not have the majesty of kingship.” And this alludes to the Hasmoneans. Meaning: don’t turn yourselves into kings. Fine, be military commanders for the need of the moment. But the moment you anoint yourself, you make yourself king—that is problematic. “And they mentioned the priests, because although they themselves are fit for anointing”—after all, priests too are anointed with the anointing oil—“still one does not anoint them for kingship, and all the more so the other tribes, as they said in the Talmud: only kings of the house of David are anointed.” That is the first opinion: there is no special problem with priests. So why did they say one does not anoint priest-kings? To say that even priests are not anointed, though they are fit for anointing, so certainly no one else. “And the second opinion: Rabbi Chiya bar Abba explained that it is prohibited by the Torah that the Levitical priests, the whole tribe of Levi, should have no portion or inheritance in the kingship.” Meaning, he argues that priests are not mentioned here merely as an example coming to teach an exceptional case—so much the more everyone else—but rather there is a special prohibition regarding priests. “And this is a proper and fitting thing,” Nachmanides says. Meaning, it seems to me like the second opinion. And therefore he explains that this was the punishment of the Hasmoneans: because they appointed themselves, as priests, to be kings. You’ll forgive me if I stop here, because once again I need to… Just take the page, because we’ll continue it in the next class. All right? Good.