Introduction: Continuing the Study of Chapter 36
In the previous section, we examined the claim of the wicked at the beginning of the chapter, and the two kinds of retribution through which the Holy One, blessed is He, guides His world. Now we will see how the Malbim uses these foundations to decipher the verses before us - verses in which every single word is an entire world of Divine providence, reward and punishment, and free will.
Two Kinds of Retribution: The Open Miracle and Hidden Nature
We explained that there are two kinds of retribution. There is retribution through nature - which is also retribution, for everything functions like the "large violin" vibrating in sympathy with the "small violin," and the entire world responds to human deeds. In contrast, there is miraculous retribution, for the miracle is also a reward from the Holy One, blessed is He, and is also part of the world order. The Malbim explains: know that there is an essential difference between them. In a miracle - such as the Splitting of the Red Sea, the falling of the Manna, and the like - it is evident to all that the hand of Hashem is at work. If a miraculous rescue were to happen today, we would immediately say: this is in the merit of so-and-so, something supernatural occurred here. But in nature, this is not evident at all. Ask why it is raining - no one will answer you that it rained because two more people came to the Torah class yesterday. Everyone will attribute it to the weather map and natural explanations, and no one will attribute it to a spiritual cause.
Tzedakah and Mishpat - What Is the Difference?
The Malbim explains in several places that among human beings, "tzedakah" pertains to matters between man and God, whereas "mishpat" (justice) pertains to matters between man and his fellow. Do not think of tzedakah merely in the sense of giving money; when it is written, "and it shall be righteousness (tzedakah) for you," it is the language of a tzaddik - you have performed an act of righteousness between yourself and your Creator. By contrast, "And these are the ordinances (mishpatim) that you shall set before them" - the laws of an ox that gored, the laws of a Hebrew servant, all monetary matters and interpersonal relations - all these are called mishpat.
And that very same distinction applies to the Holy One, blessed is He. "Tzedakah" from His side means actions He performs by virtue of His Divinity, His righteousness, and His sovereign will, through an arousal from Above, without regard to our deeds. "Mishpat" from His side means providence that depends on looking upon human deeds: according to your actions you are deserving or not deserving; according to your actions, judgment dictates whether you will receive or not receive.
The Providence of Oneness and the Providence of Justice
It follows, then, that the open miracles Hashem performs are called "tzedakah," since they stem solely from His will. This is precisely the Ramchal's definition of "Hanhagat HaYichud" (the Providence of Oneness) versus "Hanhagat HaMishpat" (the Providence of Justice). The Providence of Oneness is a governance that takes into account no calculations of this world or nature: why did Hashem act this way? Because He willed it; His absolute Oneness, which considers nothing else, willed it so. It does not depend on deeds, nor on the question of whether you deserve it. The future Redemption will be in the realm of Hanhagat HaYichud, and the Exodus from Egypt was also in this realm - for the guardian angel of the sea argued: "These are idolaters and those are idolaters!" What then was the reason the sea split? Hanhagat HaYichud. In this mode of providence, Hashem pays no heed to accusers, prosecuting angels, or counterclaims, acting like a king who breaks through fences and none can protest. However, this is not the constant mode of providence. The constant mode is Hanhagat HaMishpat - "A king establishes the land through justice" - in which the Holy One, blessed is He, judges according to human deeds and what people deserve.
Miraculous providence does not look at justice, nature, or the fixed order; rather, it is an expression of the righteousness of the Holy One, blessed is He, without regard to our deeds. The providence of justice, on the other hand, is the providence of nature: if you do good, you will receive good; if you do evil, you will receive evil. Nature is conditional and operates in full correspondence to our actions.
"Your Righteousness Is like the Mighty Mountains; Your Judgments Are a Great Deep"
צִדְקָתְךָ כְּהַרְרֵי אֵל, מִשְׁפָּטֶיךָ תְּהוֹם רַבָּה, אָדָם וּבְהֵמָה תוֹשִׁיעַ יְהֹוָה׃ - Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains; Your judgments are like the great deep; man and beast You save, Hashem.
"Your righteousness" - this refers to the righteousness that does not take prosecutors and accusers into account, the Hanahgat HaYichud (providential oneness), the manifest miracles. And it is "like the mighty mountains," like a towering mountain visible to all: everyone sees the chesed of Hashem, the reality of Hashem, His influence. No one would say the sea split on its own, and no one would say it was a coincidence that the manna fell for the Jewish people precisely when they had nothing to eat. To everyone it is clear that this is through His blessed will; the hand of Hashem is plainly seen here.
But "Your judgments" - the way Hashem rewards and punishes - operate through hidden miracles, within the laws of nature, and this is "a great deep": a place where you cannot see what lies beneath. The conduct of judgment is a concealed conduct. We do not see why a certain person was hurt, Rachmana litzlan (Heaven spare us), in a car accident. This is judgment; Hashem carried out judgment with him - but for what? It is hidden, and we do not see the hand of Hashem there. By contrast, at the splitting of the Red Sea, everyone saw the hand of Hashem with their own eyes.
Why Is Judgment Concealed?
And from here, explains the Malbim, stems the fact that many doubt the concept of reward and punishment. A person sees a righteous person suffer and does not know why; he does not know that this is the conduct of judgment for an exceedingly minute flaw committed by that righteous person, whether in this lifetime or in another gilgul (incarnation). Immediately the question arises: Why shouldn't this providence be more open and clear? After all, concealment itself leads to heresy, as we saw in "The utterance of transgression to the wicked" - the wicked person claims there is no God and no reward and punishment. If everything were clear, everyone would see that this one was afflicted because he deserved it, and that one enjoys goodness because he earned it.
To this, King David continues: "Man and beast You deliver, Hashem." This does not refer to two separate creatures, but to each and every one of us, who is composed of two dimensions - a dimension of "man" and a dimension of "beast." For physically, there is no essential difference between us and an animal; when researchers wish to know what suits a human, they conduct trials on laboratory mice, and pig hearts are already being transplanted into human beings. The Midrash lists several ways in which man is equal to an animal: he eats like an animal, relieves himself like an animal, sleeps like an animal, and so forth. In his physiological makeup, man is no different from an animal, and he is subject to the laws of nature just like a beast: when tormented, he hurts, and when gratified, he rejoices.
And what is the "man" within him? The spiritual, psychological, and intellectual dimension - the realm where one chooses whether to do good or evil. When we say "man," do we mean seventy kilograms of flesh? Certainly not. Man is his inner spiritual and soulful component, and within that component lies the power to act against the animal within him.
"A Cat Must Be a Cat"
An animal cannot help being an animal. It is told of Rabbi Tzvi Inbal that he once ran to catch a bus, and as soon as the driver saw him, he shut the doors. He thought: I am an Israeli too, and thrust his foot between the two doors. The only option left for the driver was to drive off with his foot caught. Drivers back then were more civilized, and the driver understood that this was not an option. Before the driver opened the door, Tzvi Inbal slipped in a question: "Do you know the difference between you and a cat?" The question worked - the driver opened the door and asked: "Well, what is the difference?" He replied: "The difference is that a cat must be a cat, but you can also be a human being."
This is a profound statement. You can be a human being, and you can fail to be a human being. We would never use such an expression about any animal: one does not say of a dog that he is "not a dog," or of a lion that he is "not a lion." A human being is the only creature about whom one can say, "He is not a human being," meaning that the animal controls him. An animal is conditioned: touch a cow and it jumps; wave a red cloth before a bull and it charges. And there are people who behave like animals, completely conditioned: you know exactly which word to say and the volcano erupts. But within man lies the power to act against the animal within him: I wanted to lash out - and I am capable of holding back, swallowing my pride, and not reacting. By virtue of what? By virtue of the human dimension, by virtue of intellect and soul. The body is conditioned - if one reaches toward fire, the hand recoils immediately; it is a reflex. Yet a human being is capable of keeping his hand in the fire for another four seconds, and that stems from the spiritual dimension within him.
What Merits Reward?
Actions that a person performs out of his natural instinct, from the animal within him, do not carry reward or punishment. A person does not receive a prize for not swallowing lethal poison: an animal also wants to live; a cat placed on a roof will approach the edge and pull back. The instinct for life exists in every creature. Free will, says the Malbim, exists only where a person does good simply because it is good, even when it runs contrary to his own self-interest. My personal interest is to keep money in my pocket, yet when seeing someone in need, I am capable of acting against my own interest and giving him from what is mine - here the yetzer (instinct) was broken. One who was provoked and restrained himself acted against his nature: nature says, "I was insulted - I will explode," yet he acted through his spiritual power of choice and overcame nature.
Man - A Microcosm
The Holy One, blessed be He, embedded within man all the laws of nature that are dispersed throughout the works of Creation. Man is an aspect of a microcosm - a small world - including all the natures of the animal kingdom. That is why we are taught: "Be bold as a leopard, light as an eagle, swift as a deer, and mighty as a lion" - am I an eagle? Am I a lion? Rather, everything exists within you. Sometimes people anger you and you bristle like a hedgehog, shooting quills; sometimes you are startled and you curl up and flee like a rabbit; and sometimes you are like a lion, fighting valiantly. Which nature do you possess? All of them, and a person must know which power to activate and when. Likewise, our Sages said that man's dust was gathered from the entire world - Chazal explained that this was so the earth would receive him wherever he dies, but in any case we see that in order to create man, everything had to be incorporated within him: there is magnesium in him, there is gold, there is iron - albeit in trace amounts, but everything is present. Man encompasses all of nature within himself.
However, the Holy One, blessed be He, placed dominion over nature into the hands of man's soul - the intellectual and spiritual component - and first and foremost over his own nature. Notice how wonderful this is: we explained that man is the small violin corresponding to the great violin that is the universe. Who is capable of governing the world? Only one who is capable of governing himself, for only he has received the keys. If you master yourself, you will also master the entire world.
What happened when Moshe Rabbeinu lost control and said, "Hear now, you rebels"? At that moment, the rock became deaf, opaque, unreceptive. Yet prior to that, when he maintained self-control, the entire world was placed under his feet. If you control yourself, you will control others and nature; if you do not control yourself, even nature will not listen to you, no matter how much you speak to it. And if you take a stick and begin striking it, you may compel it and threaten it by force, but that is not true obedience.
And so Shaul said to David: "I know that you will surely reign." Everyone asks: How did he know? Is Shaul also among the prophets? The answer is: I saw that you were capable of cutting the corner of my robe and not killing me - you have tremendous mastery over your impulses. One who is capable of mastering his own nature can govern others, but one who cannot control himself, how can he govern others? And one who governs others governs the entire world, and the keys are delivered into his hand.
Why Hashem Concealed Judgment
Now it becomes clear why "Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains" while "Your judgments are a great deep": because "man and beast You save, Hashem." The Holy One, blessed be He, wishes to save man, who is composed of both "man" and "beast." How does He save him? By having man choose the good through reasoned deduction. Had I explicitly revealed to you: this is good and this is evil, it would be like someone refraining from sticking his hand into a fire - for which there is no reward. No person would commit a sin, and no one would deserve a reward: everything would be manifest, with immediate judgment for every transgression and immediate reward for every mitzvah - for what would you deserve a reward? Rather, because the Holy One, blessed be He, desired to grant you immense bounty through the power of your self-overcoming, He had to conceal the judgments from you. Were they open and obvious, you would choose good merely because it is profitable. Therefore, "Your judgments are a great deep" - this I conceal. And through this, "man and beast You save, Hashem": there is salvation for both the spiritual aspect and the animalistic aspect in man, for they possess free will, and by virtue of this they merit reward for choosing good.
"How Precious Is Your Lovingkindness, O God"
מַה יָּקָר חַסְדְּךָ אֱלֹהִים, וּבְנֵי אָדָם בְּצֵל כְּנָפֶיךָ יֶחֱסָיוּן׃ - How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God! And the children of men take refuge in the shadow of Your wings.
Rashi explains according to the simple meaning: it is not fitting to extend Your lovingkindness to these wicked people, but only to human beings who take refuge in the shadow of Your wings - only one who takes refuge in the shadow of Your wings is worthy of having You bestow kindness upon him, and they are the ones who "are sated from the abundance of Your house, and You give them drink from the stream of Your delights." In other words: do not bestow kindness upon the wicked.
And the Malbim explains: "Your lovingkindness" refers, as we explained, to the conduct of divine oneness (hanhagat hayichud) - a mode of providence that does not depend on human deeds, but solely on His blessed will. And this kindness is "precious" (yakar) - meaning rare and hard to come by. Why? Because the Holy One, blessed be He, does not guide His world through lovingkindness alone, but through judgment: "A king by justice establishes a land." He employs lovingkindness only in rare instances, such as the redemption from Egypt and the future redemption. The Malbim always teaches that "yakar" denotes something of scarce occurrence. Why are diamonds valuable? Were diamonds as common as sand, they would be worth nothing, and we would use them for paving instead of gravel. Everything is precious according to its degree of rarity. So too, divine spiritual reality is scarce in this world, and the righteous are few. "How precious is Your lovingkindness" - how rare and precious is that scarce divine lovingkindness, the grace through which Hashem implanted within man a part of God from above, a divine spark.
"And the Children of Men Take Refuge in the Shadow of Your Wings"
"The children of men" - those who are in the category of "man" and not in the category of "beast" - are the ones who take refuge in the shadow of Your wings. And what is "the shadow of Your wings"? The deeds a person performs through which he draws close to Hashem and draws down divine abundance and spirituality from Above, until he becomes a spiritual entity worthy of delighting in the eternal Gan Eden in the life of the World to Come. At the highest levels, a person strips away physical corporeality even here in this world, like Eliyahu and Chanoch; and at lower levels, this occurs only there, but ultimately he will become a spiritual, divine entity. And this kindness is unique to man alone: all creatures are subject to nature, and only human beings reside under the shadow of God, under individual, personal providence from Him, blessed be He - like a bird spreading its wings over its fledglings, and all this on account of the soul, which is spiritual and divine. The rest of the animals do not take refuge in the shadow of Hashem's wings, for they are physical and coarse.
"What Does It Give You?" - An Animalistic Question
Now, when a person comes and asks, "What will this mitzvah give you?" - this is an animalistic question, for he holds that man is as physical and corporeal as an animal. In truth, if man were an animal, the question would be legitimate: take a monkey and put tefillin on it - has anything changed? A monkey with tefillin and a monkey without tefillin is the same monkey in different formats; nothing about it has changed. But if you understand that man is a portion of G-d above, you understand that the actions you perform are not merely physical; there is a spiritual, internal action taking place here. Just as no one opens up a transistor radio to search for the little man sitting inside the receiver - we all understand that it involves waves, which are subtle and invisible (and although waves can still be tested with physical instruments, relatively speaking they serve as a good example) - so too, one must understand that man is not merely the collection of molecules visible to the eye.
One must know that when a person performs an action, it has an effect in the upper realms, in the spiritual worlds. Incidentally, today there are special photographs that capture auras, and one can see a person before donning tefillin and after donning tefillin. It is known that certain colors in the aura, such as yellow and the like, indicate a high spiritual level. One sees how the moment he puts on tefillin the aura changes, and the moment he removes them the aura diminishes. A coarse, material-minded person thinks that man is just a lump of flesh, and therefore he asks: "What does this really give you?" And from a purely physical perspective, he is indeed correct; it gives nothing. But if you understand that man is composed of spiritual layers, you know what an immense impact you have had on your soul by donning tefillin, and what devastation you cause your soul when you do not. Some say that a person who fails to don tefillin for even a single day is included in the category of a karkafta d'lo manach tefillin (a skull that did not wear tefillin), who are among those who descend to Gehinnom and do not ascend - even for one day, because you realize what the soul lacks when you omit tefillin.
From here we can understand the wicked person's claim mentioned at the beginning of the chapter: "For it flattered him in his eyes, until his iniquity is found to be hated" - meaning, what reason is there to hate iniquity? This assertion stems from the wicked person viewing man merely as a collection of sinews and bones; from that perspective, there is indeed no reason in his eyes to fulfill the mitzvot. But if man is a spiritual being, you understand that with every action you perform here, you effect change in the spiritual realms.
In summary: "Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains" - the conduct of unity and open miracles is visible to all like a towering mountain, whereas "Your judgments are like the great deep" - the conduct of judgment, in which Hashem rewards man according to his deeds, operates through hidden miracles and the laws of nature. And why did Hashem conceal judgment? Because "man and beast You save, Hashem": man is composed of both beast and man, and only through the concealment of judgment is his free will preserved to choose the good because it is good, thereby overcoming obstacles and meriting immense bounty. "How precious is Your kindness, O G-d" - kindness is rare and precious like a diamond, for the world's governance is rooted in judgment; "and the children of men take refuge in the shadow of Your wings" - only man, by virtue of his spiritual soul, merits to dwell under the Creator's individual divine providence. One who understands this no longer asks "What does it give you?", but knows that every deed he performs reverberates in the upper worlds.