[Avodah] Love of Israel

[Chana Luntz]

> 
> R'nCL wrote:
> > How does the Satmer Rebbe deal with with the issues raised 
> > above (ie the gemora regarding teshuva of an idolator and the Mishna

> > regarding  Achav's portion in the world to come)?
> 
> Teiku? ;-) (Eliahu will figure out how to answer this 
> difficulty about the man he honoured)
> 
> Seriously, that gemara need not be absolute, as per the story 
> pof Rabbi Elazar ben Durdia (TB AZ 17a). Evn though he was no longer
eligible 
> for teshuvah, his sincere teshuvah was accepted and he was upgraded to
be 
> called "Rabbi", to boot.

I don't think that gemora helps you.  First of all, his sin was sexual
immorality not avodah zara, and the gemoras I quoted were specifically
about avodah zarah (and chillel shabbas) to the exclusion of all other
averos - and despite that gemora saying that R' Elazar ben Durdia REBD
was so attached to his immorality that it was like minus, it is not
precisely the same thing ("k"minus is not minus).  But even if you
ignore this and say that immorality that was like minus is minus, and
that we can learn in reverse, ie avodah zara from sexual immorality that
was like minus, that gemora still does not help you, and in fact works
against the view of the Satmar Rebbe.  Because the gemora states that
*if* one does sincere teshuva for avodah zara (which it also states is
almost impossible) the result is that one dies immediately (and that
this is true of minus and only minus).  And in fact that is the reason
the gemora brings the story of REBD - to ask, but is it not true that
for other sins one dies immediately if one does sincere teshuva, take
REBD - with the answer, that since he was so attached to his sexual
immorality it was like minus, and hence, when he did do sincere teshuva,
he died immediately.

So as you can see, that gemora seems to make things worse for the Satmar
Rebbe, because if Achav had in fact done sincere teshuva, then according
to this gemora, he would have died immediately, and hence there would
have been no live king for Eliyahu to run in front of.

Anyhow, I was so intrigued by all this that I did a bit of research on
Shabbas Hagadol (although of course getting to the computer to write up
what with pesach to prepare was clearly impossible).  Because the Satmar
Rebbe was too much of a talmid chacham for there not to be something
there - so there had to be something I was missing.  And, I think, (with
the help of the Encyclopedia Talmudit) I now have some understanding of
what it is.  The thing is, you see, there is also an issur in the torah
not to curse a nasi "b'amcha" (Shemos 22:27) and the gemora learns (see
Yevamos 22b) b'oseh ma'aseh amcha (ie when he acts appropriately, ie is
not a rasha - note that there in Yevamos it is discussing why a mamzer
has a problem cursing his father, given that his father was a rasha in
fathering him, and there it answers that he can't curse him where the
father did teshuva, and even though they say that such a person is not
capable of complete teshuva, given the continuing existence of the
mamzer, still once he did teshuva, he can be considered oseh ma'ase
amcha).

So it would seem (and I am now quoting from the Encyclopedia Talmudit)
that while some achronim learn that one is required to give kavod to a
rasha, since we learn the chiuv itself from that which it is said
regarding melachim rashaim (and indeed if one is mezalzel in the kavod
of a melech, even of a melech rasha, it is as if one is mezalel in the
kavod of Hashem himself (with the Encyclopeidia Talmudit giving the
source for this as the Marasha in Zevachim 102 and "harbe rishonim"),
there are those achronim who say that for a melech rasha there is no
chiyuv of kavod because of the pasuk in Shemos and what the gemora
learns from amcha (although it is not clear to me from the footnotes to
the Encyclopedia Talmudit who these achronim are).  And, the
Encyclopedia Talmidit goes on to say, there are some who try and
reconcile the two and say that the chiyuv of giving kavod to a melech
rasha is only midas chassidas.

Now that is all the information that the Encyclopedia Talmudit gives,
but I would assume, from this, that the problem of the Satmar Rebbe and
these achronim is that if the issur of cursing a nasi does not apply to
a rasha, why would the mitzvah of giving kavod (and note that the
Encyclopedia Talmudit in its footnotes seems to suggest that there is
support for this view from a tosphos in Sanhedrin 19a (in connection
with Yanai Hamelech and the whole story there), although the derivation
from the tosphos was not clear to me on reading it.

Now I confess I still have problems with this:

A) why cannot we say that there are two separate mitzvos, and one is not
over the issur of cursing a nasi if he is a rasha, but is over on the
mitzvah of not giving kavod, while if he is a tzadik, then if one curses
him, one is over on two mitzvos?

B) How do these achronim deal with the concept that if one truly does
teshuva for avoda zara, then one dies immediately? (And why does the
gemora in Avodah Zara not bring Achav as a counter proof if he was
indeed such)?  This is in addition to my earlier problems specifically
regarding Achav.

C) It is interesting that when the reference is to permitting cursing
when one is talking about a wicked king (rather than the wicked father
in Yevamos), that drasha is not brought by one of the chachamim, but by
Herod (ie the wicked king in disguise trying to persuade Bava to curse
him) in Baba Basra 4a, and while Bava does not specifically refute that
drasha of Herod's, he also refuses to curse him, suggesting that that
drasha is not absolute.

It is also interesting that, before I looked at the Encyclopedia
Talmudit, I checked out the Sde Chemed, and while I did not find
anything on this particular matter - I found a fascinating discussion
(chelek gimmel p194) on whether kavod hamelech is docheh an issur torah
and whether one can go on a boat on shabbas for kovod hamelech purposes
(remember my hunt regarding treatment of issurei derabanan once on has
eliminated any d'orisa problem due to a positive mitzvah, here we are
again in that territory, and again not a whiff of the idea that a
d'rabbanan should be treated more strictly than a d'orisa).  And the
crux of the discussion there in the Sde Chemed centers around Yosef
Haztadik being released from prison on Rosh Hashana, and being allowed
to shave because of kavod of pharoah pushing aside the issur, see there
- yes somebody raises that it was all before matan torah, but that does
not seem to sway the other achronim that comment there.  Of course, the
king in that case is pharoah, which rather ties in with the first source
brought in the gemora in Zevachim as to the source of kavod melech being
from pharoah (but in the gemora in zevachim, it is not the pharoah of
Yosef, who at least might possibly not be called a rasha, but the
pharoah of Moshe Rabbanu).  Because Rabbi Yanai in the gemora in
Zevachim 102a learns the chiyuv of showing kavod to a melech from what
Moshe Rabbanu said to Pharoah.  And while Rabbi Yochanan learns it from
Achav and Eliyahu, not from Pharoah, he clearly doesn't think that
showing kavod to Pharoah is wrong, as that is the substance of the
machlokus between him and Reish Lakish directly above.

And in fact that machlokus itself seems to me to cause problems for the
Satmar Rebbe.  Because there is a machlokus there where one of Rabbi
Yochanan and Reish Lakish says that "v'nitzvata l'kraso al sfas hyeor"
means that Moshe is required to treat Pharoah with respect because he
was a king, and the other says that Moshe is required to act with
disrespect towards him because he is a rasha, and after there being some
confusion over who said what, the gemora clarifies that Rabbi Yochanan
is the one who says Moshe is being told to act with respect and Reish
Lakish is the one who says that he should act with disrespect - and
since we always pasken Rabbi Yochanan over Reish Lakish, I would have
thought that this gemora too is problematic.  Presumably the Satmar
Rebbe et al would argue that this is talking about a non Jewish king,
and so the problem of the contradiction with the other pasuk does not
arise (and presumably they argue that that is why Rabbi Yochanan felt
the need to bring a different source, ie Achav, from Rabbi Yanai).  On
the other hand, Moshe Rabbanu was not exactly asking for good things to
happen to Pharoah, and yet there seems to be a distinction implicit in
all this between giving general kavod and something very close to
cursing, ie bringing down makos.

So, while I am a bit further forward, in some ways it seems I have even
more problems with the Satmar Rebbe's view than I had before - so I do
hope that RMB (or somebody else on this list who has access to his
sefarim) would be able to at least help clear some of this up.

 > -- 
> Arie Folger

Moed Tov

Chana