Managing Change (Shalom Bayit) Kutz Camp 2019 Torah Corps Immersive Session #4

The mishna articulates a general principle: One is obligated to recite a blessing for the bad that befalls him just as he recites a blessing for the good that befalls him, as it is stated: “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5). The mishna explains this verse as follows: “With all your heart” means with your two inclinations, with your good inclination and your evil inclination, both of which must be subjugated to the love of God. “With all your soul” means even if God takes your soul. “And with all your might” means with all your money, as money is referred to in the Bible as might. Alternatively, it may be explained that “with all your might” means with every measure that He metes out to you; whether it is good or troublesome, thank Him.

(4) פן ינחם PERADVENTURE [THE PEOPLE] REPENT — peradventure they cherish a different thought (they change their mind) about having gone out and set their hearts on returning (cf. Rashi on Genesis 6:6).

(1) וינחם ה' כי עשה AND THE LORD REPENTED THAT HE HAD MADE — (The first word is connected with that which means “comfort”) It was a consolation to Him that He had created man on earth, for had he been one of the heavenly beings he would have incited them also to rebel against God (Genesis Rabbah 27:4).

וינחם AND [THE LORD] REPENTED — The thoughts of God turned from Divine mercy to Divine justice: He considered what to do with man whom He had made on the earth. Wherever this term is used in the Scripture it means “considering what to do”. Examples are: (Numbers 18:19) “nor the son of man that He should consider (ויתנחם)”; (Deuteronomy 32:36) “and reconsider (ויתנחם) regarding His servants”; (Exodus 22:14) “and the Lord reconsidered (וינחם) regarding the evil”; (1 Samuel 15:2) “I am reconsidering (נחמתי) that I have set up Saul to be king” — all these passages denote a change of mind.

(1) The people took to complaining bitterly before the LORD. The LORD heard and was incensed: a fire of the LORD broke out against them, ravaging the outskirts of the camp. (2) The people cried out to Moses. Moses prayed to the LORD, and the fire died down. (3) That place was named Taberah, because a fire of the LORD had broken out against them. (4) The riffraff in their midst felt a gluttonous craving; and then the Israelites wept and said, “If only we had meat to eat! (5) We remember the fish that we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. (6) Now our gullets are shriveled. There is nothing at all! Nothing but this manna to look to!”

(10) Moses heard the people weeping, every clan apart, each person at the entrance of his tent. The LORD was very angry, and Moses was distressed. (11) And Moses said to the LORD, “Why have You dealt ill with Your servant, and why have I not enjoyed Your favor, that You have laid the burden of all this people upon me? (12) Did I conceive all this people, did I bear them, that You should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom as a nurse carries an infant,’ to the land that You have promised on oath to their fathers? (13) Where am I to get meat to give to all this people, when they whine before me and say, ‘Give us meat to eat!’ (14) I cannot carry all this people by myself, for it is too much for me. (15) If You would deal thus with me, kill me rather, I beg You, and let me see no more of my wretchedness!” (16) Then the LORD said to Moses, “Gather for Me seventy of Israel’s elders of whom you have experience as elders and officers of the people, and bring them to the Tent of Meeting and let them take their place there with you. (17) I will come down and speak with you there, and I will draw upon the spirit that is on you and put it upon them; they shall share the burden of the people with you, and you shall not bear it alone. (18) And say to the people: Purify yourselves for tomorrow and you shall eat meat, for you have kept whining before the LORD and saying, ‘If only we had meat to eat! Indeed, we were better off in Egypt!’ The LORD will give you meat and you shall eat. (19) You shall eat not one day, not two, not even five days or ten or twenty, (20) but a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you. For you have rejected the LORD who is among you, by whining before Him and saying, ‘Oh, why did we ever leave Egypt!’”

(1) By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat, sat and wept, as we thought of Zion. (2) There on the poplars we hung up our lyres, (3) for our captors asked us there for songs, our tormentors, for amusement, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion.” (4) How can we sing a song of the LORD on alien soil? (5) If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither; (6) let my tongue stick to my palate if I cease to think of you, if I do not keep Jerusalem in memory even at my happiest hour. (7) Remember, O LORD, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem’s fall; how they cried, “Strip her, strip her to her very foundations!” (8) Fair Babylon, you predator, a blessing on him who repays you in kind what you have inflicted on us; (9) a blessing on him who seizes your babies and dashes them against the rocks!

And Rabbi Yitzḥak said: A person’s sentence is torn up on account of four types of actions. These are: Giving charity, crying out in prayer, a change of one’s name, and a change of one’s deeds for the better. An allusion may be found in Scripture for all of them: Giving charity, as it is written: “And charity delivers from death” (Proverbs 10:2); crying out in prayer, as it is written: “Then they cry to the Lord in their trouble, and He brings them out of their distresses” (Psalms 107:28); a change of one’s name, as it is written: “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be” (Genesis 17:15), and it is written there: “And I will bless her, and I will also give you a son from her” (Genesis 17:16); a change of one’s deeds for the better, as it is written: “And God saw their deeds” (Jonah 3:10), and it is written there: “And God repented of the evil, which He had said He would do to them, and He did not do it” (Jonah 3:10).

(4) Jonah started out and made his way into the city the distance of one day’s walk, and proclaimed: “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” (5) The people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast, and great and small alike put on sackcloth. (6) When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his robe, put on sackcloth, and sat in ashes. (7) And he had the word cried through Nineveh: “By decree of the king and his nobles: No man or beast—of flock or herd—shall taste anything! They shall not graze, and they shall not drink water! (8) They shall be covered with sackcloth—man and beast—and shall cry mightily to God. Let everyone turn back from his evil ways and from the injustice of which he is guilty. (9) Who knows but that God may turn and relent? He may turn back from His wrath, so that we do not perish.” (10) God saw what they did, how they were turning back from their evil ways. And God renounced the punishment He had planned to bring upon them, and did not carry it out.