Daf 5a - Yisurin Shel Ahava
Ein Yaakov
- The World of Talmudic Aggada
By Dr.
Moshe Simon-Shoshan
Lecture
17: Daf 5a -
We learn from
the Talmud that, It was only through suffering that the children of Israel
obtained three priceless and coveted gifts: the Torah, the land of Israel, and
the world to come." Yes, out of this sicknessas crushing and cruel as it
wasthere was hope for the world, as well as for the world to come. Out of the asheshope, and from all
the painpromise.
Ronald
Reagan, at the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp (May 5, 1985)
Knock out
In the
previous shiur, we were introduced to the concept of yisurin shel
ahava. As we saw, this term was
used to describe suffering which is not a result of any sin, but, rather, is a
sign of Gods love for special individuals.
This concept is like a wild card, which allows the Rabbis to maintain
that while suffering is generally a Divine punishment for a persons sins, in
some cases people endure suffering that is not justified by any sinful actions.
Now the
Gemara presents a different understanding of the concept of yisurin shel
ahava:
R. Yaakov b.
Idi and R. Acha b. Chanina
differ with
regard to the following:
The one says:
Chastenings
of love are such
as do not
involve the intermission of study of the Torah.
For it is
said:
Happy is the
man whom Thou chastenest,
O Lord, and
teachest out of Thy law (Tehillim 94:12).
And the other
one says:
Chastenings
of love are such
as do not
involve the intermission of prayer.
For it is
said:
Blessed be
God, Who hath not turned away my prayer,
nor His mercy
from me (Tehillim 66:20).
This passage
presents two definitions of yisurin shel ahava. These definitions focus not on
the reason for the suffering, but on its nature.
Yisurin shel ahava is suffering that does not totally disable a
person, but allows him to continue either Torah study, according to one opinion,
or regular prayer, according to the other.
According to these interpretations, the word ahava, love, refers
not to Gods motivations for sending the afflictions in the first place i.e.
that God sends the suffering as an expression of love rather than as a
punishment for sins but, rather, the term means that God has decided in His
love to lessen the severity of the suffering.
Yisurin shel ahava, in this usage, refers not to suffering without
sin, but to suffering that may be a result of some sin, but which is made more
bearable as a result of Gods love for the individual.
Just as the
meaning of the term ahava is transformed in this passage, so too is the
meaning of the term bitul Torah.
Previously, bitul Torah referred to an individuals choice not to
study Torah, which can result in Divine punishment through suffering. Now the suffering causes the
bitul Torah, which takes on the meaning of involuntary loss of the
ability to study Torah.
In the past,
we have also seen this juxtaposition and opposition between Torah study and
prayer. Here the two compete for the
status of the quintessential human behavior.
The question is what defines man as a creature in the image of God, his
capacity for prayer or his capacity for Torah study? Alternatively, at stake may
be, not the relative ontological significance of these activities, but their
therapeutic value. The question is
which has the greater capacity to comfort the individual in his pain, prayer or
study?
This passage
presents an alternative view of suffering and its place in human life. It does not seem concerned with the
causes of suffering; some degree of suffering may well be inevitable. The severity of the suffering,
however, varies according to Gods love for the individual. As long as the person maintains his
fundamental spiritual capacities, either to pray or to study, he has not been
truly abandoned by God. Such a
person should count himself lucky, regardless of the pain he experiences.
The passage
goes on:
R. Aba the
son of R. Chiya b. Aba said to them:
Thus said R.
Chiya b. Aba in the name of R. Yochanan:
Both of them
are chastenings of love.
For it is
said:
For whom the
Lord loveth He correcteth (Mishlei 3:12).
There are two
possible readings of R. Abas statement here.
One possibility is that his statement fundamentally affirms the
understanding of yisurin shel ahava which underlies the two positions
cited above. R. Aba means to say,
simply, that there is no real conflict between the two views. The continued ability to pray or
study despite suffering are both signs of Divine favor. There is no reason to choose between
the two views.
The other
possibility is that he means to reject this understanding of yisurin shel
ahava as Divine mercy, in favor of the previous definition, that God sends
suffering to some individuals, not despite, but because of His love for
them. In this reading, the statement
both of them, means that suffering, whether or not it involves the negation of
Torah study or prayer, can be yisurin shel ahava. This is because the term refers, not
to the nature of the suffering, but to the fact that it is prompted by Divine
love, not by sin. The verse from
Mishlei, that is cited here as a proof-text, appears to support this
reading. This verse is the same one
cited above as proof that God afflicts those without sin because He loves them. We should note that while the literal
meaning of the verse does suggest that suffering can be a sign of Divine favor,
it does not necessarily refer to suffering without sin.
In light of
this proof-text, the Gemara now seeks new meaning in one of the verses cited
just beforehand:
Why then does
it say: 'And teachest him out of Thy law'?
Do not read
telammedennu, [Thou teachest him]
but
telammedenu, [Thou teachest us].
Thou teachest
us this thing out of Thy law
as a
conclusion a fortiori from the law concerning tooth and eye.
Tooth and eye
are only one limb of the man,
and still [if
they are hurt],
the slave
obtains thereby his freedom.
How much more
so with painful sufferings
which torment
the whole body of a man!
Previously
the verse from Mishlei, Happy is the man whom Thou chastenest, O Lord,
and teachest out of Thy law, was understood to refer to a person who is able to
learn Torah even though he suffers.
Since that reading has been rejected, the Gemara seeks a new meaning for this
verse. By taking liberties with the
vocalization of the word telammedennu, the Rabbis are able to get the
verse to mean, the Torah teaches us that God afflicts those whom He loves. In this new reading, the verse
describes unqualified suffering and suggests that there is a source in the Torah
for this understanding of yisurin shel ahava.
This source
is the law in Shemot 21:26-27 that states that if a master hits his slave
and knocks out his tooth or eye, the slave goes free. The Gemara states that we can derive
the idea of yisurin shel ahava from a kal va-chomer, an
a fortiori argument, based on this principle.
The exact logic of this argument is a little unclear, because the two
cases do not seem comparable. First,
the verse allows the master to strike the slave as much as he pleases, provided
no eye or tooth is lost. How then is
the loss of the eye or tooth parallel to suffering in general? Is it not
parallel to a regular beating from a slave-master? Similarly, what is parallel
to being set free in the case of the righteous sufferer? Is a human ever free of
his Divine master? Perhaps being set free refers to forgiveness for sins.
The Gemara
now goes on to give another parable for the role of suffering:
And this
agrees with a saying of R. Shimon b. Lakish.
For R. Shimon
b. Lakish said:
The word
'covenant' is mentioned in connection with salt,
and the word
'covenant' is mentioned in connection with sufferings:
the word
'covenant' is mentioned in connection with salt,
as it is
written:
Neither shalt
thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking
(Vayikra
2:13)
And the word
'covenant' is mentioned in connection with sufferings,
as it is
written:
These are the
words of the covenant (Devarim 28:69).
Even as in
the covenant mentioned in connection with salt,
the salt
lends a sweet taste to the meat,
so also in
the covenant mentioned in connection with sufferings,
the
sufferings wash away all the sins of a man.
This passage
suggests a series of different approaches to suffering. First, this passage connects
suffering to covenant. It cites the
verse from the end of the tokhekha, the extended rebuke of Israel, which
lists the unspeakable suffering they will face as a consequence of their sins. Suffering, at least in part, is a
response to sins described in the various covenant passages in the Torah. More centrally, suffering, when part
of the covenant, teaches that even when bad things happen, a Jew and the Jewish
people as a whole are not estranged from God.
The suffering is part of a larger relationship between the Jews and God. In the process, the Gemara here also
compares suffering to the animal sacrifices, which are associated with another
covenant, the covenant of the salt.
The idea that suffering is like offering a sacrifice further suggests that
suffering is a way of atoning for sin.
Finally, the
Gemara compares the way in which salt sweetens meat to the way suffering
purges a person of sin. Simply
understood, this analogy furthers the notion of suffering as atonement for sin. But there is something funny about
this analogy. How is salts capacity
for tenderizing meat similar to sufferings capacity to purge sins? Indeed, it
would make more sense to compare this aspect of suffering to the way in which
salt purges blood from the meat.
Then perhaps this analogy points to something deeper. Suffering does not simply remove the
stain of sin; it improves the person, raising them to a higher spiritual level,
possibly higher than before the sin.
If this is the case, we would translate the work mimarek here not as
purge or wash away, but as polish (see Jastrow, s.v. mrk). Suffering, then, has the capacity to
bring out the shine in a person.
Triple
Crown
It has been
taught:
R. Shimon b.
Yochai says:
The Holy One,
blessed be He, gave Israel three precious gifts,
and all of
them were given only through sufferings.
These are:
The Torah,
the land of Israel and the world to come.
Whence do we
know this of the Torah?
Because it is
said:
Happy is the
man whom Thou chastenest, o Lord,
and teachest
him out of Thy law. (Tehillim 94:12)
Whence of the
land of Israel?
Because it is
written:
As a man
chasteneth his son,
so the Lord
thy God chasteneth thee, (Devarim 8:5)
and after
that it is written:
For the Lord
thy God bringeth thee into a good land (ibid v.7)
Whence of the
world to come?
Because it is
written:
For the
commandment is a lamp,
and the
teaching is light,
and reproofs
of sufferings are the way of life (Mishlei 6:23)
Two of the
verses cited in this passage are worthy of note.
The first verse from Tehillim, Happy is the man whom Thou
chastenest, o Lord, and teachest him out of Thy law, has been cited repeatedly
in the course of the Gemaras discussions about suffering. This verse is one of the key sources
for seeing the positive aspects of suffering.
This verse also establishes a link between Torah study and suffering,
which, as we have seen, has been an important motif in the Gemaras discussions. However, each time this verse is
cited a different relationship between Torah study and suffering is suggested:
Suffering is a punishment for failing to study Torah; happy suffering is only
that which does not prevent the study of Torah; or, the Torah teaches us about
the positive aspects of suffering.
Now this verse is used to teach us that studying Torah is a reward for those who
endure suffering. Thus reading
through these passages is like hearing a series of variations on a theme. Each time we hear the same basic
notes, but they are developed in a different way each time. Like a sad tune caught in their
heads, the Rabbis keep coming back to the idea that suffering and the life of
Torah study are in some way intertwined.
The last
verse cited, from Mishlei, reproofs of sufferings are the way of life,
is used to prove that we can attain the world to come only through suffering. Any time the Rabbis seek a biblical
source to prove a point about the hereafter or the Messianic age, they have a
problem. As is well known, the Bible
never explicitly talks about such matters.
Here they use a standard midrashic strategy to elicit an eschatological
meaning from the verse. According to
the peshat (straightforward reading), this verse discusses suffering as a
way of life, referring to how we should live in this world. The Rabbis, however, consistently
understand the word life to refer to true life namely, the next world. By applying this concept here, the
verse now discusses not a way of life, but a way to (eternal) life.
This passage
introduces a different approach to suffering.
Suffering is not necessarily a result of sin, or a (counterintuitive)
expression of unconditional Divine love.
Rather, it is a necessary part of life, without which even a completely
righteous individual cannot merit the greatest gifts of God to Israel: the
Torah, the land of Israel, and the world to come.
On the one hand, this passage expresses a pessimistic world view in which
suffering is all but inevitable. On
the other hand, this passage offers hope that through our suffering, we do not
simply pay back debts incurred by our sins, but accumulate capital towards
ultimate rewards, both in this world and the next.
We can read
this passage in light of its attributed historical context. R.
Shimon b. Yochai lived through the Bar Kokhva revolt and the Roman
persecutions associated with it. He
is said to have gone into hiding to avoid Roman restrictions on studying Torah. R.
Shimon was thus no stranger to suffering.
He witnessed the horrors that his people endured in their effort to gain
control of their land, and endured great suffering in order to learn Torah. In his time, many Torah scholars were
martyred through gruesome deaths, and it is widely believed that their souls
ascended straight to heaven. We can
imagine why R. Shimon may have chosen Torah, the Land of Israel, and the world
to come as the rewards for suffering in this world.
This passage
can also be seen as referring, not only to individual suffering, but to the
collective suffering of the people of Israel.
The children of Israel suffered in Egypt before receiving the Torah,
suffered in the desert before entering the land of Israel, and are suffering
throughout history before the coming of the Messiah. In this reading, all of Jewish
history becomes a process of suffering in preparation for the ultimate
redemption.
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