Hello Everyone,
In yesterday’s shiur on עין איה we discussed the remarkable interpretation that Rav Kook zt@l gave to a passage in the Gemarah.
משנה מסכת שבת פרק ב
משנה ו
על שלש עבירות נשים מתות בשעת לידתן על שאינן זהירות בנדה ובחלה ובהדלקת הנר:
ר’ עובדיה מברטנורא מסכת שבת פרק ב משנה ו
בשעת לידתן – בשעת סכנה מזומן פורענותא:
ובחלה ובהדלקת הנר – לפי שצרכי הבית הן והיא מצויה בבית, תלויין בה:
תלמוד בבלי מסכת שבת דף לב עמוד א
וגברי היכא מיבדקי אמר ריש לקיש בשעה שעוברים על הגשר גשר ותו לא אימא כעין גשר רב לא עבר במברא דיתיב ביה גוי אמר דילמא מיפקיד ליה דינא עליה ומתפיסנא בהדיה שמואל לא עבר אלא במברא דאית ביה גוי אמר שטנא בתרי אומי לא שליט
The Mishnah in masechet Shabbat says that if a woman dies חלילה in childbirth it is because she committed one of three sins. The idea behind this teaching is that when people are in perilous situations they may not be worthy of Hashem’s protection and so may be harmed or even die לא עלינו.
The Gemarah goes on to ask, when do men face this sort of judgement and the Gemarah says they face this judgement when they cross bridges or in other similar circumstances.
At first glance this Gemarah seems to be teaching nothing more than the fact that Hashem’s protection, or in other words, השגחה פרטית needs to be earned. It does not come automatically. And indeed the subject of השגחה פרטית has been written about extensively going back to medieval times.
Rav Kook explores an entirely unexpected aspect of this Gemarah. Rav Kook explores the nature of bridges. One of the most famous sayings in the Chasidic literature is a saying of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov:
ודע, שהאדם צריך לעבור על גשר צר מאד מאד, והכלל והעיקר שלא יתפחד כלל….
Rabbi Nachman compares the world to a bridge. Every person faces challenges and what each person needs to do is to cross that personal bridge which allowing herself to become scared.[1] I don’t know if Rabbi Nachman was thinking about the Gemarah in masechet Shabbat when he said that the challenges of the world to a very very narrow bridge but it is worth thinking about.
So how does Rav Kook explain this suggyah? Rav Kook says that human civilization is a combination of the natural and the man-made. Bridges are necessary man-made structures which enable a person to proceed from place to another. The stability of a bridge depends on how well its builder adapted it to its surroundings. If a builder takes no account of the environment in which he is building, if in his egoism he views himself as conquering nature instead of working with nature, his bridge will collapse.
Rav Kook says that we are always crossing bridges in our lives. When the Gemarah says that men are in jeopardy when they cross bridges, it means all sorts of bridges. Spiritual journeys also involve crossing bridges. The ideal existence is not an existence in a state of undeveloped nature. Because bridges are perilous this does not mean that we should never try to cross rivers and gorges. We do need to go from place to place for our material needs and for our spiritual needs as well. What the Gemarah advises is that when we do weigh a journey across a bridge we need to examine if the bridge is in harmony with its environment. Both sides of the bridge must be safely anchored. When this is the case the journey can be made safely. When we aim to ascend spiritually we need to be sure that our grasp of the Torah and its concepts is clear and accurate. When the foundations of our belief are sound we can build a bridge on those foundations that will carry us safely onward.
The Gemarah then tells us about a fascinating debate between Rav and Shmuel. Students of the Gemarah that Rav and Shmuel debate many issues both in Halacha and Aggadah. They debate the issue of crossing bridges as well. Rav would never cross a bridge when a non-Jew was sitting upon it. He feared that if Hashem will punish this non-Jew then he will be punished with him. Shmuel took the opposite approach. He would cross a bridge only if a non-Jew was sitting upon it. He reasoned that the שטן cannot attack two separate nations simultaneously.
What is the point that these two masters debated?
Rav Kook explains that they disagree over what form our cooperation with non-Jews should take. As Rav sees things, as long as people stay on the path that nature dictates then things will turn out well. Problems arise when humans interfere in natural processes. Therefore Rav would examine a bridge before crossing it. The bridge is mankind’s way of overcoming nature’s obstacles. Rav weighed the advantage of using the bridge (which is a metaphor for all human endeavors) against the risk that by trying to overcome nature he would fall into the moral abyss that many civilizations had fallen into as they tried to triumph over nature. After weighing the advantage against the risk and concluded that he could not join a non-Jew in an attempt to build something as basic but at the same time as daring as a bridge,
Shmuel saw matters differently. The Jewish people are members of humanity. We must work to make the world more habitable and that means we must join non-Jews in worthwhile projects which are meant to make our lives more comfortable. The risk of falling into a moral abyss is offset by the nobility of the joint effort. As long as all concerned are focused on the goal they will not deviate into sin. By working with non-Jews we can teach them about the morals of the Torah. The relationship as we build is mutually beneficial. That is why Shmuel would insist on having a non-Jew present as he crossed a bridge.
Thanks to everyone who participated in the shiur.
Stuart Fischman
[1] Rabbi Nachman uses the word יתפחד as opposed to יפחד .