Ein Yaakov 006a – Vidui – Confession – Never Give Up Hope – Melitz Yasher – A Mitzvah Is a Defending Angel – The Power of Speech – Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal – Carob Tree – Speaker: Rabbi Zvi Aryeh Rosenfeld zal. (Recorded 1970-08-12.)
00:00 – Never lose hope. Vidui – confession. Speech impacts the soul. Misdeeds are etched into the bones but can be released through sincere vidui.
03:29 – Every mitzvah that a person does becomes a defending angel to protect him in this life and the next.
08:40 – The concept of Meilitz Yasher – a defending angel.
*10:00 – The light of even one good deed can dispel infinite darkness.
14:17 – The power of speech and the four basic levels of creation: domem (inanimate), tzemach ([plants), chai (animals), medaber (man – literally “speaker”).
*18:00 – When a person guards his speech, his defending angels are strengthened.
21:52 – An account of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal and his son, Rabbi Elazar zal, when they were hiding in a cave near Meron. Rabbi Chaim Vittal zal clarifies a question about Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair zal, the RaSHBi’s father-in-law.
29:24 – Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair wept over the open sores of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai.
30:53 – How Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai killed an evil person with a glance.
35:12 – A question about the carob tree that sustained Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and his son. If a tree grows from rocks, it is exempt from the mitzvah of Orlah.
Transcript:
The Gemara says that a person should always “sulli” – always pray, and a person should never give up hope. To continue to pray and to do teshuvah. Now, the Gemara shows how this means even in the worst instances possible. For example, a person becomes very ill and it is obvious that he is about to die, the people surrounding him are required to say to him “confess your sins”. Because, as the Mishnah says in Sanhedrin, “All those who are about to die, or be put to death by the Sanhedrin, should confess first, so that they can go to Olam HaBah [the Future World] with a clear record. One who confesses his sins is forgiven.”
The Baal Shem Tov HaKadosh said that a person who has very serious sins, and these sins are engraved into the person’s bones, the person can die from the illness caused by this engraving itself – actually physically. There’s a sickness called Shevirat Atazmot – Chas veShalom [G-d forbid] where a person’s bones become very brittle – they break. We know that medically… we know that’s due to a lack of vitamin D and, in this case, it’s caused by sins that are committed. And this engraving of these sins in the bones cannot come out. The bones cannot release this engraving or this brittleness except through viduy – through confession. Confession, of course, should be said in front of a tzaddik. Yet, when a person is about to die, confession in front of other people present is sufficient to have these sins pardoned. So, if a person is at that stage where death is imminent, then he should confess.
But, before getting to that stage, the Gemara says that a person should fear the worst. A person becomes ill – he walks outside and he is – there’s nothing wrong yet – he should consider himself as though he has been handed over to the court official to be brought before a judge to be tried. In other words, he’s in danger. And then if he suddenly feels a head pain, a slight feeling of illness, he should consider himself as though he’s been put in chains going before the judge on charges of a serious felony. If he has reached the point where he’s bedded through illness, then he should consider himself as though he has been sentenced to the gallows. And at that time a person’s ill, what really takes place is that there is a trial in heaven. The Zohar HaKodesh says a person who is sick is tried in heaven and it is decided in heaven whether the sickness should become more serious or, chas veshalom, fatal, or he should be cured.
Now then the person has lawyers who speak on his behalf. Who are these lawyers? These lawyers are teshuvah – above all – that’s the greatest lawyer of all – teshuvah – repentance – and mitzvot. A person who does mitzvot, every mitzvah acts as a lawyer. Now ordinarily, as we’ve learned many times, that for every mitzvah that a person does, there is an angel created. This angel, aside from the fact that he comes in handy in to serve him in Gan Eden [Garden of Eden], but above all, this angel acts as his defense counsel in the Heavenly Court after a person passes away. If a person commits a sin, then – on the contrary – the angel acts as an attorney against him to charge him with his crime. Now the Gemara tells us that not only does this occur after a person passes away, but even during his lifetime. Every time that he is in a circumstance which is dangerous, which could become serious, or even fatal – there is a trial in heaven at which these angels appear to testify for and against him.
So the Gemara says, “What chance does this man have at this trial?” Here we find a possuk in Iyov [23:33] where the possuk says: אִם־יֵ֚שׁ עָלָ֨יו | מַלְאָ֗ךְ מֵלִ֗יץ אֶחָ֥ד מִנִּי־אָ֑לֶף לְהַגִּ֖יד לְאָדָ֣ם יָשְׁרֽוֹ – “If there is one angel out of a thousand who will speak well on behalf of this person, then the decision is: this person is redeemed from death.” Which means, mathematically, this man has 999 angels who charge him with the crime and who demand penalty for it, who demand even death. If he has one single mitzvah, one angel who stands there to argue on his behalf, he is saved. So powerful is the good compared to the bad.
03:29 – Rabbi Eliezer says “I say more than that. Here’s a greater mathematical… a more delicate mathematical figure. If the person has 999 angels arguing against him, and that one out of a thousand that remains, in that one out of a thousand there are 999 thousandths percentage points against him, and one-thousandth of that one is for him, he too is saved.”
How can you have one angel – that’s one single angel – one act – and that one angel is made up of a thousand parts, and 999 parts of it are evil, and one-thousandth percent is good? This is a question that the mefarashim – the commentaries – ask. First, how it’s possible. Secondly, how is it possible that that 1,000th of a percent, which means actually 1 millionth. Because if you have a thousand angels, and a thousandth of one, that means 1 millionth percent, can and save this person. How could that 1 millionth percent be so powerful? These two questions are asked by the leading mefarashim. Again, the first question is why should this 1,000th of one angel – plus the other 999 being against him – why should he win out? And secondly: how is it possible? How do we explain such an act, where one single act one angel created, that angel 999,000 of that angel is evil and one 1,000 of the angel is good?
The answer is two major points, and both of them are important lessons. First: how is this possible? Very simple. Here we have a case of a rasha – an evil person who has performed 1,000 acts in the recent period before his illness, which caused him to become ill. Of these 1,000 acts, 999 were decidedly wrong acts, misdeeds, transgressions, crimes. There’s no question about it that those 999 angels are solid black – shachor. He had one act, though, which was evil. But there was one tiny element involved where in that act he might have had a good thought or a good intention. An evil act with a slightly good intention – so small that it disappears. You cannot see anything that’s 1,000th of an item. Any item you take divide into a thousand parts, that 1,000th is invisible. It cannot be seen any more. And yet, and yet: this 1,000 can overpower the others. Why? In general why? How come this good has such power?
08:40 – The answer is that the good angel is called a Melitz Yasher. Melitz means a lawyer who speaks with eloquence the power of goodness. These angels that are created by good deeds, by mitzvot, have the power of dibur – of speech – that is so eloquent and so impressive it can penetrate into the hearts of the judges – the Heavenly Judge or the the hearts of those who decide. In some cases it’s the neshamot of tzaddikim. They speak with power. In this case you have an angel who is part of the angel, this tiny point, a pinpoint who cannot be seen. who can hardly be heard. He’s got to overpower the other 999 of this one unit, plus battle against the rest. How does he do it? What is his trick?
His trick is to stress, first, the evil parts – show how black and how dark the rishut [evil] of this person is. He says, “We confess. We admit this person committed 999 purely evil acts. And this one act we admit too. That here’s a person who is so bad a rasha that he did one act that had this and this 999 parts that were bad. Imagine then,” he says, “How this one drop of goodness should not be hidden in a place that’s so black and so dark. You take a room that’s a thousand square feet, and in the center light a tiny candle, and you’ll have a large section of that room light up. One little drop of light – an inch or a fraction of an inch – can penetrate a thousandfold, a millionfold area of darkness.” By stressing the person’s evil first, he shows then that if within such evil that can be a good spark, this person deserves to be saved. This good spark would be invisible, would not count, would not be considered perhaps even a sin if done by a tzaddik. But here we have a rasha who does something like this, ratio, relatively his act the spark is worth more many of the good acts of a tzaddik.
Now this is what the Gemara says of the arguments of the angels in heaven. Rabbeinu zal [Rebbe Nachman] stresses this point very strongly. Rabbeinu zal says that a person many times can feel depressed himself. He takes an account of himself, of what he has done, his record – how bad it is. He finds that he has not done mitzvot as he should. He has not studied Torah, he has not given charity, he has not participated in communal activities for Eretz Yisrael, for the poor, mitzvot. And then he says, “Well, I do go to … I do put on Tefillin every day. I put on Tefillin today. That’s a tremendous mitzvah.” Then when he thinks more carefully about it he says, “I put on Tefillin. I didn’t even think of what I was doing. The Tefillin I put on… I disgraced them. Because this is something that’s so holy it’s called a Crown of HaShem. I put it on without kavana [sincere intention]. I said sacred words of tefilah, I mentioned HaShem’s Name that is so holy that angels in heaven tremble before they can say it. They’ve got to say many words of holiness before they’re allowed to emit the Name of Hashem. And here I said the Name of HaShem so many times, with tefilah or not, without thinking, without kavana, without considering the holiness of it… what good is this mitzvah that I did? I don’t see a mitzvah there. I see it as a sin, chas veshalom”.
The person can become more depressed even by the so-called good act that he has done. Rabbeinu zal says that this is the wrong attitude of a person. Don’t be the evil angel against yourself! Be the good angel! Search yourself – not for the bad – but look deeply and continue to search. You’ll find darkness, you’ll find more darkness. You’ll find bad intentions, bad kavana – nothing good. But if you search deeply enough, you’ll find a spark of good. There is a little drop – a dot – that you’ll find of pure goodness of all that you’ve done. And if you concentrate this one dot, you pull yourself up, by this, through that pit of darkness into a new realm of light. This is called “dahn lekhaf zechut”. The mitzvah to judge a person who has done something, judge him to the good. You judge him to the good it’s a tremendous mitzvah. It’s just as big a mitzvah to judge yourself lekhaf zechut. Because if you judge yourself lekhaf zechut, you’ll find that you are no longer a rasha as you thought. Behold you are a tzaddik! With this you’ll drag yourself out of this depressive state of mind into a state of simcha. And with this simcha, you will become a tzaddik. The result is that you’ll… by judging yourself this way, you’ll become a tzaddik.
This is what Rabbeinu zal says is the main lesson of this Gemara. That the 1 percent, the one-thousandth of a percent, should be your own judgment. You, yourself, should find the good within yourself. And with that attach yourself to that good, and then broaden it. Add to it. You’ll find that eventually, shortly, the evil will fall away and you”ll remain pure. You’ll be oleh – continually you’ll rise up into higher madreygot [levels].
14:17 – Speaking about the power of tongue, we know that HaShem created four different levels of creation. The lowest level is something that is inanimate, does not live at all: earth, metal, mineral. The second level is something that is alive but is immobile. It cannot move. That is vegetation. The third level, next to the highest, is Chai, which means animal life. bird life. fish. Things that live move about, roam about. They have a degree of of intelligence. But the highest one, the highest level of creation is Medaber – which means the human being, whose intellect, mentality, is higher than an animal life – who possesses a soul, which animals don’t, and with this they are the highest level of creation. Yet, how does the Torah refer to this highest level? What term is used? Midaber. “One who speaks.” Not “one who has a neshama”, not “one who has a brain” – moach. But Midaber – one who speaks. With this power of speech he is above animal life. This shows the greatness, the importance of the power of speech.
It’s understood that with speech, speaking you can learn Torah, you can sulli, you can speak words of holiness. Therefore this is something yet no other part of creation can perform. At the same time, the Gemara warns that the power of speech is very harmful too, very destructive. We know that one of the worst sins that exist is the sin of loshon hara – slander – speaking evil about a person, by a Jew especially.
The Gemara tells us that, in addition, there’s also a sinful act that is performed by the tongue that is so bad that the worst decrees, the harshest gezerot from Heaven, come down, descend because of this act. This is called nivul peh. Nivul peh means profanity or unclean type of verbiage. The Gemara says that the penalty for this, because it brings the anger of HaShem which results in death, the possuk says, the words of the prophets, that orphans, widows are brought about by this. And then they, in turn, scream for help, they are not answered from Heaven. And after all this, the Hand of Justice is still stretched out to mete out penalties for it. The Gemara says what is meant by this “Hand of Justice Stretched Out”? In other words, this must be “and also: that means there’s an additional sin of nivul peh. What is this sin that is so serious, which case is this, where the justice in Heaven is so incensed that it pursues the person endlessly chas veshalom? The Gemara says it’s the case of a wedding. The wedding we find that times, when, chas veshalom, people come, and instead of regarding it as a mitzvah, as an item of holiness, where there is a unity of two people.
What is a wedding? A wedding is something that has been pre-ordained in heaven. It was decided in heaven years before, before these two even came to earth, before they were born, this chatan and kallah – bride and groom, as souls in heaven, were united. And they were divided in heaven, sent down as two separate individuals. But they were not two separate individuals, they were actually half of an organism. Each one was one half. One half of a complete neshama. Until these two met and were fused together by this, they were merged in this chupah [wedding ceremony], they were considered half of a person. A man who is unmarried is called plag guf – half of a person. The same thing holds true with the woman because she, too, possesses only half of a soul. When they are married they become Adam – a complete person, a complete organism.
Now, the purpose of a wedding is that this soul should become complete. Which means that a wedding is attended by the Heavenly Forces too. This is a simcha in heaven if the wedding is considered sacred – if these two are united sacredly in kedusha [holiness]. That’s why it’s called Kedushin. “Harei at mekudeshet li” the man says to the… the bridegroom says to the bride, mekudeshet means… comes from the the origin of the word kodesh – holy – the entire thing should be considered something that is holy. These two beings united – merged together – with the purpose of further producing the future generation, the subsequent generation. This is the purpose of the creation of the world – to propagate the breed, to bring more kedusha into the world. Every child that is born means that many more prayers being said, that many more mitzvot being done. So in this case, of course, the wedding should be regarded as something that is kodesh.
But everyone knows the result of the wedding night, what the wedding night leads up to: the mating of the bride and groom bekedusha. Yet there are people who would dain… who would dare to speak about this in mocking or jest in a form of profanity, meaning nivul peh, with unclean taint to their words. Those who speak about this at the time of the wedding, even if this person has already been fated in heaven to a rich life, a full life of 70 years, then this his fate is destroyed, that decision in heaven is destroyed and everything in heaven is turned against him, chas veshalom. This is what’s meant by … “the Hand of Justice is Stretched Out” to destroy this person’s previous fate and to give him a new harsh decree for the future. So serious is the sin of nivul peh – of defaming and defiling an organ that a person is blessed with, with which he is called a Midaber – he is above an animal because of the fact that he has a tongue, a mouth, the power of speech.
Therefore the Gemara stresses that a person who is blessed with being a person should live as one, above the category of animal, by guarding his tongue and seeing that only words of kedushah come from them. A person who guards his tongue can be assured then that the angels and mitzvot created by his actions and by his words will then have a much stronger power of tongue to speak, to argue on his behalf in the Heavenly court for him.
21:52 – The story of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal. We’re all acquainted with that story, we have it before L’Ag B’Omer – the story of how became so famous and so great. There are a few details though, that require a little more understanding. The story in itself we won’t go through now, just to point out some of these additional items. The beginning of the story was that Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal was sitting in a room together with Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Yossi. And they were discussing the architecture, the culture of the Romans. Rabbi Yehuda praised them and Rabbi Yossi remained silent. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal attacked them [the Romans] and said that their architecture and all their accomplishments were ones of evil directed at harming the Jews.
Now the Gemara says that there was a man called Yehuda Ben Gerim who heard this and spoke, mentioned this, these words, to his relatives, to his friends and, one mouth to the next, word got back to the king, and then the king sent soldiers to capture Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal to kill him. He escaped. He hid out in a cave in the village of Peki’in where he stayed for 12 years, and then an additional year, 13 years. Finally he came out. When he came back the…
During those years, the first thing that happened was that when he came to this cave a miracle happened and in front of the cave a well sprang up, a well of water from which he drank. He was there with his son, Rabbi Elazar Bar Shimon Bar Yochai zal. And also a carob tree – a bukhzor tree – from this they lived. Now they had food, this bukhzor, and water, but they had no means of clothing. Where’d they get clothing from? How was clothing going to last so many years? The Gemara says that there was sand there, and they dug a pit in this sand. They removed their clothing, covered themselves with sand, and inthis way they preserved the clothing where it could last so many years. Then when it was necessary to get out, they would don these clothes again. So that’s how the clothes lasted. As far as the food, goes why was the only food available this carob tree – charuv? This is because it was a miracle within a miracle. There was no Carob tree there before now a tree sprang up. Not only was it a tree that sprang up, but a tree which ordinarily, even when planted, would take 70 years before it could produce fruit. And here it produced fruit immediately. So this was a ness betoch ness – a double miracle.
When they came back, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai’s father-in-law… we stress that word very much, because this is a a major item, about which there is a lot of controversy, and very sadly so. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s true father-in-law is Rabbi Pinchas Ben Yair – a very famous rabbi in the Gemara. In the Gemara is says… in Gemara Shabbat it says he met his son-in-law, Rabbi Pinchas Ben Yair. All the commentaries say this is a simple error in print. The difference between father-in-law and son-in-law in Hebrew is one single letter. Chatno means son-in-law, chotno is father-in-law. The Vuv was missing or you can have a Cholom – a dot on top – without the Vuv – which would also be pronounced chotno. However there many people who made the error of thinking that Rabbi Pinchas Ben Yair was Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal’s son-in law. This is a grievous error. It’s been discussed many times, even recently, in many publications there are many rabbis who allow themselves to be misled. And again I say: very sadly so. Because this is the only place in the Gemara where you find the relationship with this one Vuv being a question. This sound: chatno or chotno.
In the Zohar HaKadosh, which is the origin of the life story of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal, there we find, in detail, the story of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal’s being married to the daughter of Rabbi Pinchas Ben Yair. There it says befeyrush – clearly – black and white, it mentions there a number of times, many times, this relationship. That’s why it’s very important to stress this point because undoubtedly, you’ll come across discussions on this topic, and it is vital that we know the truth. There is no other truth but one. The truth is that Rabbi Pinchas Ben Yair zal was the father-in-law of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal. Rabbi Chaim Vital zal, a student of the Arizal, asks a question – strange contradiction in reference to this.
The Gemara says in Chulin, that Rabbi Pinchas Ben Yair was very interested in Pidyon Shevuim – raising money to ransom those in captivity. And the Gemara tells us about his greatness, his miracle powers. He was traveling once, he came to a river and he had to get across. There was no way to go across. He commanded the river to… the waters to divide so he could get across the river and … for himself, and for others who were there. The Gemara says “Look how great he was. He performed the miracle of Moshe Rabbeinu – Moshe Rabbeinu and 600,000 Jews who had the waters of the Red Sea divided before them – he too did it. What was his greatness? Because he never took a penny from anyone. Not even from his own father. The moment that he got his own senses, he would never have hanaah – any pleasure – out of this world whatsoever.
Now he came to the house of Rabbeinu HaKadosh – Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi – the Chief Rabbi of the Gemara. The Gemara tells about how he was very friendly with him, he wanted to visit him and so on. This question Rabbi Chaim Vital brings up. Because Rabbeinu HaKadosh was the youngest student of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal. And he became the Chief Rabbi long after Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal was nistalek – after he passed away. And the father-in-law of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal passed away before Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal. Now, how can we have Rabbi Pinchas Ben Yair coming to Rabbeinu HaKadosh, visiting him, being apparently the same age? If he was the father-in-law of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal, how could he come in the next generation as the same age as Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal’s student?
This is a mighty powerful question. It would seem impossible to answer, to coincide these two. Rabbi Chaim Vital zal answers very simply, very simply, that the Rabbi Pinchas Ben Yair who came to Rabbeinu HaKodesh, was the grandson of Rabbi Pinchas Ben Yair, the father-in-law of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal. A grandson named after his grandfather. There were two of them. This is the simple answer and naturally a true one. There is no other answer possible. Again, in fact, in truth, Rabbi Pinchas Ben Yair was the father-in-law of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal. A vital point to remember. Too, if this question ever is brought up, you now know the answer to that question of seeming contradiction between the the time element of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal’s students and the generation before him.
29:24 – Now the next point which we must bring up and then go back to straighten this point out, the Gemara says Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal came back. He did certain things. He met his father-in-law, and his father-in-law saw his condition he started to… he saw the wounds, and deep wounds that were inflicted by the sand, lying in sand continually, being submerged in sand up to his neck. This sand cut into his flesh. There were deep gashes caused by the sand, and his father-in-law started to brush him off, to wash him, and his tears fell into these wounds and caused… tears that have acid in them, caused Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal to cry out in pain. Rabbi Pinchas Ben Yair said to him “Woe is to me that I see you in such a condition!” Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal answered, “Woe is to me if you would not see me in such condition. Because the fact that you see me in this condition is the reason I have now risen to the highest possible status.” The greatest rabbi of the Gemara – one that was so great that all the angels in heaven called Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal “rabbi” too. Eliyahu HaNavi always called him rabbi. He was never called by his name except one time, the Zohar HaKadosh says, that he heard his name being called without the word rabbi. And he said, “This must be HaShem calling me. No one else would dare to call me by my name.” Of course it was.
After this we get to the point. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal walked out of the street and he suddenly came face-to-face with Yehuda ben Gerim. Yehuda ben Gerim who had caused the entire trouble in the beginning by having this… the words that he had spoken against the Roman government passed back to the Romans. Though he did not do it directly – he had told this to his friends and relatives. The fact that he let it out, let out a secret like this which is so dangerous was the direct cause of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal’s having to flee and stay in exile for 13 years. When Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal saw him, he looked at him and said, “You are still alive?” He gave him a burning look, the look of the power of a tzaddik, and this look caused Yehuda ben Gerim to physically disintegrate. His bones fell apart. He remained a heap of bones. This caused his death.
30:53 – Now here we come to an interesting point. Tosefot ask the question: how is it possible that Yehuda Ben Gerim should be killed by Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal, which means that he was evil or at least a person not of great importance. We find the Gemara says elsewhere that Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal said to his son “There are two rabbis who have come here, and I want you to go visit them. Because they are very holy, receive their blessings. One is Rabbi Yonatan ben Asmai, the second one is Rabbi Yehuda Ben Gerim. These two had come to pay their respects to Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal, and they had asked permission to leave, and they had not left. Because they had not left – they were detained for a while, they came back and asked permission again. And he said to them, “But you already received permission to leave” which is the custom before you leave a tzaddik, you must receive permission to leave – to depart. They said, “Because of the fact we were detained, we cannot leave now without permission since we are in this vicinity.” So he said, “You’re right. You’re justified in that. It’s admirable.” And then he sent his son to them to receive a blessing. This was after being in the cave.
So, you can imagine how great Rabbi Yehuda ben Gerim was that Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal’s son was sent to him to receive a blessing. How can we say here that Yehuda ben Gerim was put to death by Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal and he was a person of evil? Tosefot says that we must say that the look Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal gave him was not one that caused him to disintegrate. Just that he died. Because to disintegrate – a mound of bones – “a heap of bones” is a very derogatory statement which is said about rasha’im [evil people]. When a tzaddik looks at a rasha and he falls into the heap of bones, that shows the person was a rasha. Here he had inadvertently perhaps, unintentionally, led to the exile of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal, and therefore now he paid with his life. But the Gemara says, tells a story, so the Gemara would not say he fell into a heap of bones, the Gemara would say he just passed away through this look. The mefarashim say, though, there is no doubt that we cannot change so many words in the Gemara. We do not find the word Rabbi Yehuda Ben Gerim throughout the Gemara in the story.
Again we must say there were two people. One was Rabbi Yehuda Ben Gerim, a rabbi who was great, famous, accepted by Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal as a great rabbi. The other was this person, Yehuda ben Gerim, who was no relation whatsoever, he per chance happened to have the same name, therefore we don’t have to change the the girsa – the wording in the Gemara. He was killed by Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal’s look, in which he was… he did disintegrate into a pile of bones.
35:12 – These are the additional points that are outstanding in the story, except for one other item that is brought by the mefarashim – commentaries – on the Zohar HaKadosh, where they ask: the miracle that happened when he came to this cave was that a carob tree sprang up. The question is: even if it was a miracle, he had food now but it was a tree. And the law in the Torah is: any new tree that’s planted, planted or grows, the first 3 years it is called Orlah. Orlah means the fruits are forbidden for any human to consume them. The fourth year, the fruit must be brought to the Holy Temple. If it cannot be brought, then it remains forbidden the fourth year too. It’s only in the fifth year that a Jew is allowed to eat those fruits. This law applies at all times, to this very day, in Eretz Yisrael, when a new tree is planted, the fruits are forbidden for 4 years. How could Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal have eaten from the fruit of this tree before the four years were up? Even if we say that it was through a miracle that this tree grew, it still cannot be that a miracle would allow a sin to be committed. The tree did grow. It appeared instantaneously, but still, the tree was growing. And if it was growing, from the moment that this tree appeared until 4 years have elapsed the fruit are forbidden. There’s no loophole that can circumvent this.
The question, of course, is a very strong one, but there’s a… one of the hidden statements in the Gemara, it’s brought in Mishnayot, brought in Yorah Deah. There’s one case where Orlah doesn’t have any effect, there’s no issur of Orlah. And that is a tree that grows among stones, among rocks, not in a regular field. Any tree that comes out among selaim – rocks – that tree is exempt from the law of Orlah. This carob tree appeared among the rocks, it wasn’t in a field. Therefore there was no law of Orlah, and Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai zal could eat from this tree immediately.
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