[Avodah] "Borei nefashos rabbos VECHESRONAM"

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, January 29, 2008 1:50 pm, R Michael Kopinsky wrote:
: It is clear that Chazal's  inclusion of this pasuk in birchos Krias
: Shma of Yom and Layla had this intent ("laafukei midaas hakofrim
: she'omrim shemi shebara or lo bara choshech.").  But who says that's
: what the pasuk itself is referring to?  Was dualism even a popular
: belief in the times of Isaiah?

The pasuq in context is a nevuah to be relayed (across centuries, if
one won't buy into Deutero-Isaiah) to Cyrus see 45:1 "lemeshikho,
leKoreish". Zoroastrianism started out monotheistic, later introduced
two demiurges representing light/good and darkness/evil. Ahura Mazda
(Lord Wisdom, the Deity) and Spetna Menyu (the good demiurge) got
combined, leaving a good creator and an evil god called Angra Menyu
(sometimes Ahriman or Hariman).

In Bava Basra, in the R' Chanina ben Dosa stories, Hariman ben Lilis
is the juggler he encounters. The Gra draws the connection. See
Peirush al Kama Agados, most readily available as the appendix of The
Juggler and the King.)

Cyrus was a Zoroastrian at a time when dualism had just finally won over.

I also think we can relate the Purim story to the travails of
Zoroastrian monotheism. If Achashveirosh was Xerxes, then he presided
over the death of true monotheism in ancient Zoroastrian religion.
That would explain who Haman was in terms of priesthood -- one of
those who watered down Zoroastrianism with a more Hindu outlook -- and
why he hated Jews. It would also explain why the attack on the Jews is
not a major event in Persian recorded history. They saw it as a
sideline in a general attack on monotheism.

Back from the tour of AZ... Yes, the pasuq was explicitly written to a
Zoroastrian dualist, at a time when people could still recall their
monotheist past. Quite likely the original intent of the pasuq.

Some notes from my shiurim on the siddur. Both the Ri bar Yaqar and
the Avudraham (the two rishonim most vocal on peirush hatefillos) draw
the parallel between light and good, and darkness and evil. Evil is
the absence of good; just as dark is an absence of light. They are
created the way a hole is dug -- Hashem provided more empty space than
light, more potential than fulfilled good.

They also both take "vechesronam" to refer to the limitations and
needs of the "nefashos rabos". Now that I opened my Otzar Rishonim al
haSiddur, I see neither was pulled from my own imagination.

: Looking at the pasuk in context
: (http://www.mechon-mamre.org/i/t/k/k1045.htm),
: it is part of a long statement about the absolute power of G-d, and
: that
: there are no other gods.  In that sense, it is a denial of polytheism,
: just
: as Sh'ma Yisrael is a denial of polytheism.  But I find no need to
: understand it as a polemic against a particular religion not prevalent
: at
: the time of Isaiah.
:
: KT,
: Michael
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SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

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Micha Berger             One who kills his inclination is as though he
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