"Thus says Hashem: Stand on the roads and see, and ask for the ancient paths, which is the good way, and walk in it, and you shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk." These next two verses are, among the Yemenites, customarily read in the haftarah of Tisha B'Av as an introduction to "I will surely gather them." "Thus says Hashem: Stand on the roads and see." The Radak says that "stand on the roads" means: stand in your minds upon the good way and the bad way. There are two paths and you must choose which is the correct way. "And see," that is, weigh it with your understanding, as Eliyahu the Prophet said to the worshippers of the Baal: "How long will you waver between two opinions? If Hashem is God, follow Him, and if the Baal is God, follow him." So stand on the roads, look at the two paths, and see. On one side we have the true prophets. The true prophets tell you: take rebuke and turn from your evil ways, and through this you will be saved, so that you will not be handed over to the enemy. The false prophets say: no, what you are doing is excellent, do not worry, nothing will happen, peace, peace, all will be well, do not fear, do not turn from your corrupt ways. What the prophets say, the true prophets, that you will be handed over to the enemy, you have nothing to fear, it is only scare tactics, all will be fine. He says to them now: stand on the roads and see, you are here at some fork in the road where you do not know which is the correct way, stand on the roads and see. Come now, examine with your intellect: "and ask for the ancient paths, which is the good way, and walk in it, and you shall find rest for your souls." He says to them: examine with your intellect which is the good way, and also ask about the ancient paths, the paths that are from of old, which are the roads paved from ancient days. Ask the generations that have passed, come and see that all of history always proves that whoever held to the way of truth fared well, and whoever held to the negative way, the way that the prophets of the Baal teach, fared badly, for he held to the way of falsehood. Rather he says to them: come and see, always whoever held to the way of truth fared well, and whoever held to the evil way fared badly, and from this you will be able to recognize which is the good way. Either through reason or through tradition. Reason says: come, let us see what is just and what is not just, is the way of the false prophets the correct one? To rob, to oppress, to plunder, to murder, is this the correct way? Or if that is not enough for you, come look historically: those who walked in the way you are walking, do they still exist? Did they survive? Or is it precisely those who walk in the way of Hashem who survived. From these two paths you will be able to know which is the correct way, "and you shall find rest for your souls." Through this you will have rest of soul, contentment of spirit, through this you will be able to decide which is the correct way. But the prophet says: I tell them this, "but they said, We will not walk." I tell them: stand on the roads, see, ask which is the way and walk in it, we will not walk, we do not want to, there is no one to talk to.
"Thus says Hashem." The Malbim explains that here the description is like a person who has strayed from the road and is walking along the side of the road, searching, wondering, where the correct way is. Passersby say to him, as it were: what are you searching for? For when you stood on the road you saw them, here it is, recognizable to all, why did you turn aside? And if you are still not sure, they tell him: ask the travelers, ask those passing on the road and they will tell you which is the way, where the main road is, what the route is that you should tread. So too in the analogy: the people of Israel strayed from the way of Hashem, the people of Israel seek the way of happiness, and therefore they invent for themselves new commandments that Hashem did not command, as it is written there about Yeravam, "the festival which he made in the eighth month, the month which he devised in his own heart." He, as it were, seeks the way of Hashem, I want to serve Hashem, so he made a new festival. The festivals already written in the Torah do not suffice for him, he needs new festivals. He says to them: why do you seek the way? For all that you are now seeking new ways is because you strayed from the straight path. Had you walked on the paved road you would have had no problem, but you strayed from the way of your fathers, and since this is so, you seek for yourselves new ways. But he says to them: stand on the roads, if you stand on the road you will see clearly which is the correct way. What is "stand on the roads"? You have the Torah, take the Sefer Torah, there you will see the way of Hashem in which your fathers walked. And even if you do not know it and are not learned and do not know the Torah of Hashem, he tells you: ask for the ancient paths. Ask the prophets, ask the mouth of the sages which is the correct way that one should tread, and then through this you will find rest for your souls. You seek new commandments for yourselves, you seek new things, you have no rest, but if you know which is the correct way you are at ease, for I know that I am treading the correct way. But "they said, We will not walk." They seek a new way, and why? Because they do not want to walk in the way of Hashem. Not because they did not find the correct way, for if so, then ask, there are people who will guide you to the correct way, but no, from the outset they do not want to, they say we will not walk, we want a new way, they despised the way of Hashem.
Notice, says the Malbim, that here it is written "stand on the roads and see, and ask for the ancient paths." So first of all there are "roads" here, there are "paths" here, there is "see" and there is "ask." "Stand on the roads and see," "for the ancient paths ask." What is the difference between a road and a path, what is the difference between seeing and asking? The Malbim, as we have already seen, explained in several places that a "road" is a public thoroughfare, while a "path" is a track paved for an individual. For example, I can speak of a main highway and I can speak of some track branching off from it leading to a private villa. That track I would call a path, and the main highway I would call a road. A public road is trodden by all, one can see it immediately, therefore he says "see." "Stand on the roads and see," this you can see clearly, it is trodden, it is recognizable to all, it stands out. But by contrast the paths are not known to all, it may be that they do not even appear on a map, since it is a path, a narrow place leading to some private place, so it may be that this thing is not well known, not familiar, and therefore he says "and ask for the ancient paths." With these things one must already ask, the matter requires clarification, it is not "see," but rather something that requires inquiry and investigation. To what do these words correspond? For this is in fact a parable. So he says to them: regarding the fundamentals of the Torah, the roots of the Torah, these things are well known, these things are familiar, and therefore he says to them: stand on the roads, these are the fundamentals of the Torah, and see, this can be seen like a road that is known to all. By contrast, regarding the details of the Torah, these are things that require much more depth, much more contemplation, they are not revealed to all, one must ask the sages, one must ask those who understand, regarding this he says to them: and ask for the ancient paths. "Stand and see" is knowledge through the intellect, he says, and "ask" refers to things which we also receive by way of tradition. "By way of tradition" means from the ancients, from the prophets, from those who transmitted the tradition from generation to generation, about these things one must ask, why? "Ask your father and he will tell you," what we received from the previous generations, and to conduct ourselves according to it, to build our lives according to it. But "they said, We will not walk." From the outset they are not interested, so the prophet says: I have nothing to say to them.
Therefore the result: "And I set watchmen over you, saying, Listen to the sound of the shofar; but they said, We will not listen." After the Holy One, blessed be He, sees that they do not want to return through inspiration, when He appeals to the intellect and speaks with them by reason, stand on the roads, contemplate, see, the way you are walking is a mistaken way, investigate the matter, consider it, He tries to persuade them by reason, and what do they say? We will not walk. The Holy One, blessed be He, says: I nonetheless want to bring you back to Me, and if not with a strong hand... What follows? The Holy One, blessed be He, says: if not with a strong hand, that is to say, when there is no will to repent willingly, then it will be with a strong hand, it will be with an outstretched arm, it will be wrath poured out upon you. Why? Because to abandon the Holy One, blessed be He, is impossible. This match is a match from which one cannot separate. Just as the Holy One, blessed be He, swore to the people of Israel that He would never destroy them, and swore to the people of Israel that He would never sever Himself from them, and since this is so, if there is a situation in which the people of Israel sever themselves, they must be brought back. For if not, then as the Christians said, the Holy One, blessed be He, despised the people of Israel, forsook them, abandoned them, took another people for Himself. How do we know that this is not so? There are promises: "And yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly and to break My covenant with them." And the Holy One, blessed be He, swore by His great Name: if the heavens and the earth can come to an end, then the people of Israel will cease from being a nation before Me all the days. There are promises that the people of Israel will remain forever. And if so, says the Holy One, blessed be He, then it should be with gentleness, and if not, then "with wrath poured out I will reign over you." If you do not accept this willingly, then it will be through punishments. And therefore "I set watchmen over you." What are watchmen? As it is written, "A watchman I have made you for the house of Israel." They would station men on the wall, and these men would watch into the distance to see whether the enemy was approaching. And when the enemy approaches, there are no radios, there is no ability to see into the distance, so one needed only a watchman who would stand alert and ready to see whether the enemy was coming. And when the enemy comes, they say: sound the voice, listen to the sound of the shofar. The watchman says to them: gentlemen, listen, there is a shofar here, I am blowing the shofar to inform you that trouble is near to come. That is, the watchman also says: notice that the enemy is blowing a shofar to come to war. When the enemies would come to war, they would sound trumpets, they would blow shofars to give encouragement, they would shout shouts, so it is brought in Chazal, that they would shout shouts and strike with clappers and rattles and all sorts of other implements to create noise and to create terror upon the nation coming against them in battle. So he says: listen, do you not hear that there is a sound of the enemy's shofar coming now upon you? The enemy is sounding for war, so if that is the case, at least out of fear of punishment you should already repent, you should now awaken. "But they said, We will not listen." But here too I have nothing to say to them, perhaps we should frighten them? No, they do not want at all to hear the resounding sound of the enemy's shofar coming upon them. The Malbim says: notice that "I set watchmen over you" is a parable. But this parable is very fitting to reality, since a watchman is the man standing on the wall to inform when the enemy comes. And by contrast the prophets are also called watchmen. The prophet too is called a watchman, "A watchman I have made you for the house of Israel," the watchmen instituted them, the letters mem-nun-tzadi-pe-kaf the watchmen instituted them, the prophets are called watchmen. So he says: behold, I have set over you prophets, and the prophets tell you: listen to the sound of the shofar, there is about to be trouble, but even to this they do not want to listen.
Therefore, "Hear, O nations, and know, O congregation, what is against them." "Hear, O nations," you nations whom Hashem appoints to chastise the people of Israel. "And know, O congregation," the Malbim explains that "congregation" (edah) is from the language of warning, "I have warned you this day." "And know, O congregation what is against them," and you shall know, you shall see that I warned them, I testified against them, and they were not willing to heed that warning, so the blows they will receive come to them justly. They earned it fairly, for I warned them and they did not heed that warning. The Malbim says: it is written "and know, edah," this means the warning, like "warn (ha'ed) the people." And "the edah" also refers to what follows, "edah which is against them," like "and know the testimony which I have testified against them." As it were, "edah" is written twice, this refers to what is above and this refers to what is below. Know the testimonies which I have testified against them. Or another possibility: for we have seen that the Holy One, blessed be He, says in the next verse, "Hear, O earth, behold, I am bringing evil upon this people." So it turns out that I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against them. He calls the earth as a witness against them, so the earth will be a witness against them, it is a witness, as it were, it will testify that I warned them. This is what He says: "Hear, O earth, behold, I am bringing evil upon this people, the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not heeded My words, and as for My Torah, they have despised it."
Therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, says, "Hear, O earth." Hear, O earth, the earth is the witness between Me and them. The Radak says: why did He say "the earth" and not say "the heavens"? "I have called the heavens and the earth to witness against you this day." So we see that the heavens too are witnesses; here He does not take the heavens as a witness but only the earth as a witness. Since the earth will be desolate through their iniquity, as He says many times, therefore the earth is the strong witness here. When they remain in the land and all the difference is only that there will be no rain, then I can say the heavens will testify. But here He is speaking that they will be exiled from here, so what will be the mute standing testimony that I warned them? It is the earth. If they see the earth desolate, this is testimony that there was a warning here. So therefore He enlists the earth to testify against you. And regarding this He says, "Behold, I am bringing evil upon this people, the fruit of their thoughts." The Radak says: He will not punish them for the thought alone, but for the deeds that are the fruit of their thoughts. Meaning, the Holy One, blessed be He, does not punish for thought, as we will soon see. So if that is the case, why does He punish here? The Radak says: notice, He does not punish for their thoughts, but for the fruit of their thoughts. The thought is the tree, and what issues from it is the deed, that is already the fruit. It turns out then that the punishment is for the result, for the deed, for the deed is the fruit of their thoughts. They think that I do not see their deeds, and therefore they follow the desire of their hearts; the Holy One, blessed be He, says: the fruit of their thoughts, these results, for this I will punish them. He brings an additional explanation in his father's name: "the fruit of their thoughts," he says, refers to thoughts that a person thinks and that did not come to his hand, and in the end he refrained from doing them, of this it is said "the fruit of their thoughts." But thoughts that come to his hand and he refrains from doing them because he is God-fearing, because he is meticulous in the commandments, these are not joined to deeds. That is to say, if you planned to do a sinful act and were forced and did not do it, for this He will indeed hold them accountable. By contrast, if you planned to do a sin and out of fear of Heaven refrained from it, for this He will not hold them accountable. So he explains. In practice we will soon examine to what extent these things are truly accepted by Chazal. And the reason for this, he says, is that "as for My Torah, they have despised it." As we saw, they did not heed My Torah, and to the words of the prophets they also did not listen, as the prophet rebukes them, and they also despised the Torah itself, as we saw in the days of Yoshiyahu when Chilkiyahu found the Sefer Torah and read from it, then for them it was a novelty, for many of them had already despised the Sefer Torah, had already distanced themselves from what is written in the Torah. The Malbim explains "Hear, O earth," meaning the evil that I am about to bring upon them is "the fruit of their thoughts." What is "the fruit of their thoughts"? That is to say, it is a result, it is the fruit of their thoughts. For they thought thoughts of heresy, thoughts of denial, "and they did not heed My words," and "My Torah" they also did not listen to, which is the words of Torah, and not only that, but the Holy One, blessed be He, says: further, in their heart I still hold them accountable for this, their thoughts by which they despised it also in the heart, "and they despised it." The Holy One, blessed be He, says: because of this this trouble will come upon them.
The Gemara in Tractate Kiddushin, on page 40, says: a good thought the Holy One, blessed be He, joins to the deed. As it is written, "Then those who feared Hashem spoke one to another, and Hashem listened and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear Hashem and for those who think upon His Name." The Gemara asks: what is "for those who think upon His Name"? Rav Assi said: even if a person thought to do a mitzvah and was forced and did not do it, Scripture regards him as though he did it. A good thought the Holy One, blessed be He, reckons for you as a deed. But an evil thought the Holy One, blessed be He, does not join to the deed. As it is written, "If I had regarded iniquity in my heart, Hashem would not hear." By contrast, with an evil thought, even if there is iniquity in my heart, Hashem does not hear. As it were, Hashem makes Himself as one who does not hear, that is, He does not reckon it at all among the transgressions. But then how do I uphold "Behold, I am bringing upon this people evil, the fruit of their thoughts"? The Gemara asks from our verse. In our verse it is written, "Behold, I am bringing upon this people evil, the fruit of their thoughts." There is evil here for the thought itself. The Gemara says: a thought that produces fruit, the Holy One, blessed be He, joins to the deed; a thought that has no fruit, the Holy One, blessed be He, does not join to the deed. A thought that has results, "the fruit of their thoughts," that produced fruits, this the Holy One, blessed be He, joins to the deed. But if it was not fruit but only their thoughts, for this the Holy One, blessed be He, would not punish. The Gemara asks: but that which is written, "in order to seize the house of Israel by their heart"? Without fruits, only "by their heart," for the thought of the heart itself. Rav Acha bar Yaakov said: that is written regarding idolatry, for the master said: idolatry is severe, that whoever denies it is as one who acknowledges the entire Torah, and so on. The Gemara says: there are two transgressions for which a person is held accountable for the thought itself. One transgression is mentioned there in the Gemara, this is the matter of idolatry. The very fact that a person thinks about idolatry, he is punished for it. And the reason for this is simple, for understand, when I think about idolatry that itself is denial, that itself is a transgression. And the additional matter for which a person is held accountable for thought is also for the thought of forbidden relations. And here too, since he follows after his heart, after harlotry, and since this is so, that itself is a matter of transgression. Beyond this, if a person only planned to do a transgression he is not punished. So how does the Radak say in his father's name that thoughts by which a person was forced and did not do the transgression, how does he say that for this he will not be punished? How does he say, excuse me, that for this he will indeed be punished? For we have seen that a person who thought an evil thought and was forced and did not do it does not receive punishment. So one can explain this in two ways. One way is that here we are dealing with people who worshipped idolatry, and since this is so they are held accountable even for the thought itself. The second thing one can explain is that here we are speaking of a person who has become habituated in the transgression. It is written that if a person transgressed continually, it has become permitted to him, as it were, and this one time he comes to commit the transgression but is forced. He always steals, and this time he comes to steal and the police went home, "a righteous man went out today." Yes? He did not steal today. They tell you: he is punished as though he stole. Why? But he still did not commit the transgression! Since this is his customary way, we reckon it for him as though he actually did the deed. So here too one can explain that what the Radak's father says, that even though they were forced and did not do it they will be held accountable for it, is because they had already become habituated in the sinful act, and then in such a situation the Holy One, blessed be He, joins the thought to reckon it as a deed.
"To what purpose does frankincense come to Me from Sheva, and the good cane from a far country? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor are your sacrifices pleasing to Me." He says: to what purpose is the frankincense to Me from Sheva? Why do I need the frankincense from among the kinds of spices which they would burn for idolatry? So Hashem says: why do I need the frankincense and the good cane? For the purpose of the incense. The Radak says that these things were not found in the land of Israel; the other ingredients were indeed found in the land of Israel, and the incense was meant to make the offering fit, and they would go and bring these things from a far country in order to offer incense before Hashem. Hashem says: if the offering is not pleasing in My eyes, then why do you trouble to bring Me ingredients of incense, when the incense, as it were, comes to make the offering fit? The Malbim explains that in fact the complaint here against them is: after you despise the words of Torah, despise the commandments, why should you bring frankincense from Sheva? You bring it in order to offer before Me frankincense as they burn there in Sheva, and you bring the good cane from a far country as they offer there in a far country to idolatry. The Holy One, blessed be He, says: these are new commandments that I did not request from you. For the Holy One, blessed be He, says to them: "Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor are your sacrifices pleasing to Me." The Holy One, blessed be He, says to them: for your burnt offerings are not acceptable, that is to say, even what you offer according to My command is not acceptable, all the more so what you bring, things I did not command. So why do I need all these things? The Malbim says: this part is in fact the analogy of what is written, "stand on the roads." As it were, for we saw there, the chapter opens with the fact that you lost the correct way, and the loss of the way, if you recall we saw at the beginning of the chapter, is that you seek for yourselves new commandments. You invent for yourselves commandments that Hashem did not command. Because the heretics wanted to resemble the nations, they invented for themselves new commandments of frankincense from Sheva and the good cane from a far country, in order to invent for themselves forms of worship as they saw them do there. This is in fact always the customary folly of all who despise the commandments of Hashem, that they bring imitations from the nations and try to instill them in us. Was it not so in Europe among the various reformers, all the various "neo" movements? What did they do? They began to resemble the churches. They began to bring a choir to the synagogue, and in the second stage they also brought an organ and various musical instruments. Why should only the nations have it? It is very nice that we should have it too. And so on, this is the way, they began to do all sorts of things that resembled the nations. They even dressed their cantors in priestly garments. Whoever looks at such questions in halacha, is it permitted to pray in a synagogue where the cantor dresses like a priest in his garments? He dresses as a... what we have is not good, it is not enough, it is not fitting, one must imitate what the gentile does. It is a kind of weakness, that always whatever comes to us originally from the Holy One, blessed be He, is not good enough, whatever the gentile does is always more successful. Once someone asked, one of these reformers asked the rabbi, he says to him: honored Rabbi, why did Yosef need to circumcise all of Egypt? What did it give him that a gentile should be circumcised? It is like someone performing a brit milah on his dog. So will it become holier, purer? What, you are going to circumcise a gentile? What does that give? So he said to them: I will explain to you. He said to them: look, Yosef knew in his great wisdom that there would always be such people among Israel, and in the future they would be so bad that circumcision would be regarded in their eyes as a repulsive thing. To circumcise the child? What, are you talking about performing surgery on him against his will? To harm his appearance? And what are you talking about? No. Yosef said: these I know their nature. If a gentile does something, they will do it. If a gentile does not do it, it does not suit them, it is not sufficiently progressive. Yosef went and circumcised the gentiles. He says: now you too can circumcise, gentiles also circumcise. It is fine, gentiles also circumcise, you can circumcise. Ah, fine, if gentiles circumcise it is fine. The British royal house circumcises, fine, then I too will circumcise. But if you say no, only Jews, always something that only Jews do is not good enough. But if a gentile also does it, then Yosef went and circumcised the gentiles, he says gentiles also circumcise, you can circumcise calmly, set your mind at ease. So you went and invented for yourselves new commandments, new laws, because of these practices of the gentiles, and you thought these things would be acceptable to you before Hashem. The Malbim says: notice that there are two expressions here: "to what purpose does frankincense come to Me from Sheva, and the good cane from a far country? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor are your sacrifices pleasing to Me." What is the difference between "not acceptable" and "not pleasing to Me"? The Malbim says: the burnt offering comes to atone for an evil thought. "And that which comes into your mind shall not be at all." The Gemara says that the burnt offering is against the meditation of the heart. And it also comes to atone for a positive commandment. That is to say, we have offerings for a negative commandment, and for a positive commandment the burnt offering atones. The burnt offering is the one that atones.
These too are not the ultimate purpose. Therefore He says "your burnt offerings are not acceptable," since the burnt offering comes to make acceptable, but the sacrifices, we said, do not come to make acceptable, they come to atone, and therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, says "nor are your sacrifices pleasing to Me." The sacrifices are not at all pleasing to Me, but the burnt offering that comes to make acceptable, the Holy One, blessed be He, says, does not make acceptable.