[Avodah] [Areivim] tzioni dayenu

[Yitzhak Grossman]

On Tue, 5 May 2009 12:21:06 -0400 Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org>
wrote [on Areivim, redirected as per moderator request.  If you're
seeing this, RMB, the Avodah mod, has consented to being quoted.  The
context is whether Ben Gurion can be considered a messenger of G-d to
bring the Jews into Erez Yisrael.]:

a > Well, one still has to address megalgelin zekhus al yedei zakai...
> (Shabbos 32a) Wouldn't the fact that the messengeris a chayav imply that
> the result is a chov?

My favorite expression of this issue is a vort that I once heard from a
prominent Brisker:

[Rough paraphrase, from memory:]

Rambam (Issurei Bi'ah 10:14/10,
available here: http://www.mechon-mamre.org/i/5113.htm):

"Do not think that Shimshon who saved Israel, and Shlomoh who was
called the friend of G-d, married foreign women, in their
Gentilehood, but the secret ('sod') is as follows ..."

Bishlama the question from Shlomoh, I understand; surely the Navi
wouldn't call him 'Friend of G-d' had he sinned so grievously, but
what's the problem with Shimshon?  Perhaps he was indeed a great
sinner, but as a factual matter, he saved Israel!

We see from here, that a man who eats neveilos and treifos, who
publicly desecrates the Shabbas, "der mentsch ken nisht zayn moshian
shel Yisrael [that man cannot be the savior of Israel]"! 

Yitzhak
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