matos-masei: purest anguish, purest joy
Happy (?) av friends,
A quick newsletter (sorry about the typo. I don't know which one, I just know it is there.)
Hard to believe we're here at the end of Bamidbar! My entire sense of time is off -- I've spent the past month just working, walking, and taking care of Mr. Felix (my cat.) I hope you all are doing okay in the heat.
Let's start in Bereishis Rabbah:
רבי שמעון בר אבא משום רבי יוחנן, בכל מקום שנאמר ויהי, משמש צרה ושמחה, אם צרה אין צרה כיוצא בה, ואם שמחה אין שמחה כיוצא בה. אתא רבי שמואל בר נחמן ועבד פלגא בכל מקום שנאמר ויהי, משמש צרה. והיה, שמחה
Rabbi Shimon bar Aba in the name of Rabbi Yochanan: in every place the Torah says "ויהי" the substance is anguish and joy. If anguish, there is no anguish like it. If joy, there is no joy like it.
Rabbi Shmuel came to separate: in every place that the torah says "ויהי", the substance is anguish. If the Torah says "והיה", joy.
The Sages begin to challenge Rabbi Shmuel with cases from the Torah where ויהי indicates joy and in each case Rabbi Shmuel finds anguish within it. For example:
מתיבין ליה והכתיב ויהי אור, עוד היא אינה שמחה שלמה, שלא זכה העולם להשתמש באותה האורה
they raised an objection for him [isn't it written] "ויהי אור/let there be light"
[he responds] it is not a complete joy because the world did not merit to make use of that light
This back and for goes on for a while, with the Rabbis offering challenges and Shmuel finding anguish in each of them.
But that's the irony, right? Shmuel came to separate between joy and anguish, but his machlokes with the Rabbis davka shows that anguish and joy are both found in ויהי.
The same is true of והיה, the word Shmuel says indicates joy:
מתיבין ליה והכתיב והיה כאשר נלכדה ירושלים, אמר להם עוד היא שמחה שבו ביום נטלו ישראל אופכי על עוונותיהם
they raised an objection for him [from Jeremiah]: "והיה/and it was when Jerusalem was captured"
he said to them: this is still joy, because on that day Israel received recompense for their עוונות/"sins"
This brings us to our Torah portion:
ואם־לא תורישו את־ישבי הארץ מפניכם והיה אשר תותירו מהם לשכים בעיניכם ולצנינם בצדיכם וצררו אתכם על־הארץ אשר אתם ישבים בה
but if you do not disposses the dwellers of the land before you, והיה/it-will-be that their remnants are splinters in your eyes and thorns in your sides and they will cause you anguish on the land that you dwell within
Here's one of our words (והיה), in this case directly linked to צרה/anguish. Where is the joy? Or haChaim says that the joy comes from using those we allow to remain ("לצד רצון"). With all due respect to Or haChaim (friend it's-complicated of the newsletter), it is hard to imagine a less compelling vision of שמחה.
One alternate understanding of this comes from examining our two words more closely. While both ויהי and והיה contain joy and anguish (in our combined view of the machlokes between Shmuel and the Rabbis) there is a difference between them. Namely, והיה is a permutation of The Name, while ויהי is not. The anguish and joy of והיה come directly from haShem.
And indeed, right after our verse we get a second repition of והיה tied directly to haShem (translated awkwardly to make the connection clear):
והיה כאשר דמיתי לעשות להם אעשה לכם
it-will-be that i will do to you like what i planned to do to them
If the Israelites don't dispossess them entirely, haShem will reverse the roles of the two peoples: those promised the land and those destined to exile.
Complete eradication of the people currently living in a land is (should) be out of the question. In which case, it isn't a question of "if" some remnant exists, but "when" some remnant exists (btw אם, the first word of our verse, can mean both if and when). This isn't a conditional punishment haShem is warning about, but a promise about the consequences of our actions.
When we conquer the land and use the remnant of the people there, haShem will reverse our roles with regard to that land.
And in this will are שמחה and צרה both.
Free Palestine,
good shabbos,
ada