G-d’s Furnace – Vayishshlach
Most of parshat Vayishlach focuses on the reunion of two diametrically opposed life philosophies, Yaakov and Eisav, after not seeing each other for 34 years (see last year's shiur). In the shiur today, I would like to focus on the last part of the parsha, the listing of the descendants of Eisav and specifically on an often overlooked passuk –
ותמנע היתה פילגש לאליפז בן עשו וכו' (בראשית לו, יב).
Chazal use this passuk ותמנע היתה פילגש as a prime example of a passuk that seemingly has no purpose being in the Torah. Who cares what Eliphaz’s mistress’ name was? What possible message for Am Yisrael could such a passuk have? Chazal go on to say, that nothing in the Torah is superfluous and this passuk has equal importance to the passuk שמע ישראל. I will attempt to explore the significance of this passuk and show how monumentally it affects Jewish history and even has bearing on current events. I will explain this in the framework of a principle from my sefer Meir Panim.
Who was Timna?
Timna was the daughter of a king. Royalty! Chazal in the Midrash (Breishit Rabba 82, 14) tell us that Timna wanted to convert and become part of Am Yisrael. She first approached Avraham, but he rejected her. She then approached Yitzchak and he too rejected her. She approached Yaakov and Yaakov also refused to accept her as a convert. She then said, “Better to be the mistress of the son of Eisav (Eliphaz), than to be a queen of my own nation”. As we know, from the union of Timna and Eliphaz, a son was born – Amalek!
The first question is, why did all three of the Avot reject her? Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov were all involved in attracting converts. Avraham opened an inn and dug wells, specifically for this purpose. Yitzchak re-dug the sealed up wells of his father, for the purpose of generating converts. Yaakov, in this week’s parsha, gathers all the idols and idolatrous paraphernalia from the members of his household before travelling to Bet El to build a mizbeach (בראשית לה, ד). Yaakov’s family served idols? So Chazal say – the idols belonged to some of the converts. If they were interested in making as many converts as possible, why did they reject Timna?
Chazal say that Timna had an agenda. She did not simply want to convert because she believed in G-d and wanted to serve Him, but because she wanted to become the wife of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov – in turn – and be one of the Imahot that gave birth to Am Yisrael. She wanted to be in place of Sarah, Rivka, Leah/Rachel. OK, so why is that so terrible - Sarah, Rivka, Leah and Rachel were also converts? Chazal say that a גר צדק can have no other agenda than wanting to believe in G-d. Since Timna made marriage a condition of her converting, she was not like the other converts that Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov converted. She had an additional agenda.
After being rejected three times, Timna could have thrown in the towel and gone back to her own people and been their queen. She chose instead to become a mistress to Eliphaz, Yitzchak’s grandson. Not even a wife - a mistress! She gave up a life of opulence and luxury for that. Does that not show her true devotion? She so much wanted to be part of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov’s family that she settled for the “scraps”?
But repeated rejection did something to Timna. It sowed the seed of frustration followed by hate and the result was Amalek, who caused Am Yisrael untold grief over the millennia.
The Gemara (Sanhedrin 99b) says that the Avot were mistaken in rejecting her. They should have instead been mekarev and then Amalek would never have come into being.
There is a principle - that later generations are forbidden to criticize early generations. In masechet Shabbat 112b, it says – “If the Early Ones (Rishonim) were like angels, then we are like people. If they were like people, then we are like donkeys”. If so, how can an Amorah (from the last generation of Amoraim) criticize the Avot like that in masechet Sanhedrin?
The Mefarshim explain that both were right. The Avot were right in their generation and the Amorah was right in his. Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov were all nevi’im. If they rejected Timna it is because they saw something in her that disqualified her from becoming a convert. Perhaps they foresaw that she would give birth to Amalek.
You may ask the question – “But if they had accepted her, like the gemara said, they would have prevented the birth of Amalek?”
This brings us to the crux of the shiur.
Let us assume for a moment that the Avot did not know for certain what the repercussions of rejecting Timna would be. Let us assume that they were faced with a dilemma. If they accept her as a convert, it would conflict with the halachot of what defines a גר צדק, because she had an agenda. On the other hand, if they rejected her they could be the instrument that creates Amalek. What does one do in this situation? We know they decided to follow the halacha and reject her. But the gemara criticizes them for that.
HaRav Ouri Cherky shlita brings an amazing chiddush. He explains that the hilchot of גרות are not absolute. They differ according to the circumstances of the generation. For example in the time of David and Shlomo they did not accept converts because Am Yisrael was at its zenith and many wanted to convert to be part of the success story – not because they really believed in HKB”H. Similarly in the time of Mashiach, we will not accept converts – for the same reason. The Amora in the gemara in Sanhedrin lived at time when accepting a convert of the class of Timna, who was a convert with other additional motives, would have been accepted. But in the time time of the Avot, Am Yisrael had not yet become consolidated and only 100% pure converts were accepted. So both the Avot and the Amorah were right – each for their own generation and therefore it does not constitute criticism of the Avot, as explained above.
Let us take this to another level. During the time of Bayit Sheini, there was no longer נבואה in Am Yisrael. It ended when the yetzer harah for avodah zarah was abolished by Ezra. We all know the story of Kamtza and Bar-Kamtza (from masechet Gitin 55b). We read about how Bar Kamtza was embarrassed in public and the rabbanim present did not object. To get back at them he went to Rome and brought back an animal to bring as a korban, but he purposely created a flaw in the animal that according to the halacha is considered a מום but by the goyim’s standards it was not a flaw. The chachamim were faced with a dilemma. What to do? If they brought the animal anyway, it contravened the halacha. If they did not, they risked bringing down the wrath of Rome against them and causing the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash. The Gadol Hador – Zechariah ben Avkulas ruled that they could not bring the animal as a korban. Word got back to Rome and the end result was that they destroyed the Beit Hamikdash. Was Zechariah ben Avkulas right in his decision?
Again, as above with Timna, the gemara criticizes Zechariah ben Avkulas
ענוותנותו של רבי זכריה בן אבקולס החריבה את ביתנו ושרפה את היכלנו והגליתנו מארצנו (גיטין נו, א)
It is all very well for the gemara to criticize, they had the privilege of hindsight – Kamtza and Bar Kamtza was a few hundred years before this gemara was written. They knew the end result. Zechariah ben Avkulas however was living during the actual event. He had to weigh a similar issue to the Avot with Timna – compromise on the halacha, or risk untold suffering and destruction to Am Yisrael. Again, we know the end result – he went with the halacha and the Mikdash was destroyed and we are still in galut 1951 years later as a result.
So the question is, in a case like this – when you know the possible catastrophic repercussions of such a decision (perhaps even know for certain that those will be the repercussions), how do you rule? Do you rule according to the halacha, or do you compromise on the halacha to save catastrophe?
The Avot went with the halacha. Zechariah ben Avkulas went with the halacha. But the gemara on the other hand, in hindsight – criticizes them. So who is right?
Before we get to the punchline, some more background to clarify the issue. During the 6 days of בריאת העולם, twice the creations rebelled against their Creator. The first was the moon – “There cannot be two kings in the heavens” and the moon was diminished as a result. The second was the fruit tree, which instead of manifesting as HKB”H commanded עץ פרי עשה פרי – that the branches and fruit would taste the same, said “If the branches taste like the fruit, people will eat the tree and then there will be no tree and no fruit”. And HKB”H punished the tree – the עץ הדעת (מאיר פנים, פרק טו). These creations interfered in “G-d’s furnace” - בכבשונו של מקום, or Hashem’s master plan and did their own limited calculations of how things should be.
The Gemara (Brachot 10a) tells the story of king Chizkiyah who refused to have children, because he saw beruach hakodesh that the evil Menasheh was destined to be born from him. Menashe wreaked untold atrocities and Chizkiyah was faced with this same dilemma – fulfill the mitza of פרו ורבו or refrain and prevent disaster from happening. Yishayahu Hanavi severely reprimanded him and he eventually did have children and Menashe was born. So who was right, Chizkiyah or Yishayahu?
Today we face a similar dilemma. Due to misguided thinking by secular governments of Israel over the generations, it was decided to amend the Law of Return to include anyone whose ancestor was Jewish including a father, a grandfather etc. According to the halacha, someone is only Jewish if their mother is Jewish. The misguided reasoning for this decision was that during the Holocaust, Hitler classified anyone with Jewish ancestry – even a grandfather – to be Jewish.
The result of this is what is now called זרע ישראל – a very large population of Israeli citizens, predominantly from the former USSR, who are full Israeli citizens and are regarded as “Jewish” by the Law of Return, but are not Jewish according to the halacha. Many of them capitalized on this amendment to the Law of Return to come on aliyah and improve their financial situation. The זרע ישראל are living in Israel like Jews (although most of them are non-observant/secular). They are exposed to the full Jewish experience. They study in the same schools, they loyally serve and risk their lives in the IDF, they celebrate many of the festivals – they consider themselves to be Jewish. This has resulted in many, many cases where halachic Jews, boys and girls, have entered into relationships with this population and when they get to the stage of marriage, they encounter a halachic “hiccup” because the partner is not Jewish according to halacha.
There is a fierce conflict raging between the various factions of the government, including the religious parties in and amongst themselves of what to do. Do we follow the halacha to the letter or do we compromise? Obviously it is the charedi parties who vehemently hold that we cannot compromise under any circumstances. On the other side of the equation, some of the national religious parties believe that we should be mekarev these souls, who already consider themselves Jewish and compromise on the halacha and not מרחיק them as required by halacha as part of the conversion process.
It is a dilemma of the magnitude of Timna, Zechariyah ben Avkulas and Chizkiyah! On the one hand we have the halacha as it has been since Har Sinai. On the other hand, by rejecting them we risk creating another Amalek, another Menashe, another churban.
I do not know who is right. We do not have nevi’im to tell us which path to take. Based on the above, it would seem that the correct path is to follow the halacha as the Avot, Chizkiya and Zechariah ben Avkulas did and leave the rest up to HKB”H. On the other hand the gemara criticized them because of the consequences of their decision.
It is a devil’s choice!
What I do know is, and this is a terrifying chiddush – Even if the Avot had not rejected Timna and accepted her as a convert, Amalek would probably still have been born – because he was necessary to give rise to essential figures in the Jewish nation, like Rebi Akiva, who (according to חינוך עם פירוש מנחת חינוך מצוה תכה הערה ג) was a descendant of Haman - the same Rebi Akiva who is responsible for the survival of the תורה שבעל פה !
If Zechariyah ben Avkulas had capitulated and agreed to allow Bar Kamtza’s korban to be brought, he may have temporarily averted disaster, but Bayit Sheini would still have been destroyed – because Am Yisrael deserved for it to be destroyed due to the שנאת חינם. If it was not via Bar Kamtza, it would have been via Shmuel Berkovich or someone else. Bar Kamtza was simply the מכה בפטיש.
When faced with a dilemma of this magnitude, we must follow the halacha. We must not interfere in G-d’s furnace, using our limited, human intelligence. Even if the outcome seems inevitable! We must act like the Avot did, like Yishayahu told Chizkiyah to, like Zechariyah ben Avkulas did and …… recognize that there is a Higher Power working behind the scenes to ensure that the final outcome will end well.
I do not know who is right regarding the conversion of זרע ישראל. What I do know is that whichever decision is made, it will currently end in disaster, either way – because Am Yisrael right now is at a similar point to how we were before חורבן בית שני, with an alarming level of שנאת חינם. If this continues, it is irrelevant which decision is taken, neither will be matzliach because HKB”H detests שנאת חינם and will not help us.
Instead of taking sides and fanning the flames of hatred in Am Yisrael, we need to work urgently on אחדות and pray to HKB”H to give us the wisdom to make the right decision. It is not our powers of intelligence that will make it the right decision, it is HKB”H’s סייעתא דשמיא. Undoubtedly we have to follow the halacha, but that is not sufficient.
The gemara in Sanhedrin and Gitin were not criticizing the Avot’s psak halacha regarding accepting Timna as a convert. They were not criticizing Zechariah ben Avkulas’ psak halacha to not bring Bar Kamtza’s korban from Rome. These piskei halacha were sound and correct.
The gemara’s criticism of the Avot is that they had it in their power to prevent Amalek from becoming a nation of hatred. Even though they did not accept Timna as a convert, which was a correct psak halacha, they should not have cast her out. Instead they should have been mekarev her so that she could learn more about the Torah and come to the understanding herself why it is passul to convert with an agenda. The gemara is clearly saying that it is Beit Hillel’s method of kiruv which is the halacha lema’aseh, not Beit Shamai’s unbending approach.
The gemara’s criticism of the Zechariah ben Avkulas was that he was a Gadol Hador at the time and he should have tried harder to prevent the שנאת חינם. Eicha Rabba (parsha 4, 3) says that Zechariah ben Avkulas was one of the chachamim present at the party in which Bar Kamtza was publicly shamed and he did not object. If the spiritual leaders like Zechariah ben Avkulas would have made the effort, they could have prevented the root cause of the destruction of the 2nd Beit Hamikdash. Just like Noach! Why is the flood referred to as מי נח – associating the apocalypse with Noach’s name? Noach spent 120 years building the ark. In that time he should have been crisscrossing the entire land giving תוכחה and trying to get the people to repent. Instead he only asks HKB”H when he exits the ark “Why did you have to destroy the entire world?” HKB”H answers him “Where were you till now? You had the power to prevent this but you didn’t!”
It is not sufficient for the Torani factions in the זרע ישראל debate to simply be correct in the psak halacha. They are right about the psak halacha, but it is a case of the operation being a success and the patient dying! They must make more effort to act like Beit Hillel and not Beit Shamai, to be mekarev so that the people who don’t know, can learn and understand for themselves why the psak halacha is as it is, instead of having it rained upon them from a dizzy height. The Torani factions in our nation need to make a more concerted effort to increase their אהבת ישראל and foster more achdut in our nation instead of remaining polarized and isolating themselves, behind their piskei halacha. They must not be like Noach, who concentrated only on building the ark – which was Hashem’s commandment, no doubt about it, they need to go beyond that and prevent Am Yisrael from imploding due to שנאת חינם.
We all need to start working more on אחדות in Am Yisrael rather than maintaining that it is we who speak in G-d’s name – whichever faction we are. We need to bring Am Yisrael to a level where we will be worthy of things turning out right. Right now we are not!
And we learn all that from the passuk ותמנע היתה פילגש לאליפז.
