[Avodah] Dayan ha'emes

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 08:15:52PM GMT, REMT wrote to Areivim on a thread
that turned into asking about "Dayan Emes" vs "Dayan haEmes":

: I believe "Baruch Dayan Emes," without the hei, is the most common
: form used when people hear bad news.

: In any event, the phrase appears as well in Tziduk haDin, together
: with the form "Ha'emes": "Dayan emes, shofeit tzedek ve'emes, baruch
: Dayan ha'emes."

I personally tend to say "Dayan haEmes" ever since learning Pachad
Yitzchaq, maamar 11. The thesis of the maamar in PY is the difference
between Melukhah in the sense of
    Adon olam, asher malakh beterem kol yetzir nivra
-- rule that is inherent in the Divine, even before there is anything to
rule over -- and Melukhah in the sense of
    Ein Melekh belo am.

RYH concludes that qabbalas ol malkhus Shamayom of Shema doesn't
involve the word "melekh" because it is inherent in HQBH. In contrast,
the Malkhios of Rosh haShanah is about accepting Him as Melekh -- ie
Melukhah in the second sense. This is why the gemara has to ask whether
the opening pasuq of Shema is sufficiently close to the topic of Malkhios
to be one of the 10 prooftexts, why it's not self-evident that a pasuq
good enough for daily qabbalas ol would be good for Malkhios too.

Rashi explains Shema as saying, "Listen and accept Israel, Hashem, Who
is our G-d now, in this world, will be, in the World to Come, One G-d
[accepted by all]." In what way is G-d's presence in this world not
unified? We do not perceive Him as One. As we learn in Pesachim (50a),
it is because we do not perceive Hashem as one that we have two distinct
blessings. When something good happens, we say "haTov vehaMeitiv --
the Good and the Bestower of good", but when something bad happens
we say a berakhah that calls Him "Dayan haEmes -- the Judge of truth".
In the perfected world, we will not see haTov vehaMeitiv and Dayan haEmes
as disparate, and therefore "bayom hahu yihyeh H' echad ushmo echad".
That is what we mean by "vehayah H' leMelekh al kol ha'aretz."

Every time something happens that we do not see the "gam zu letovah",
Hashem is hiding some of that Truth. "Dayan haEmes" doesn't refer to
Hashem as the True Judge, but Hashem as the Judge of which Truths we
are ready for Him to reveal.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The trick is learning to be passionate in one's
micha at aishdas.org        ideals, but compassionate to one's peers.
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