Sefer Yeshayahu chapter 65. "I let Myself be sought by those who did not ask, I let Myself be found by those who did not seek Me, I said, Here I am, here I am, to a nation that was not called by My name." First of all, this is a very familiar verse. Many of the responsa in the books of She'elot uTeshuvot open with this verse, "I let Myself be sought by those who did not ask." Often the responsa are built on the fact that a person asks the sage a question and the sage answers, and afterwards he publishes it in a book. But sometimes there are doubts that arise within the sage himself, and he presents them in the book as a question and answer. So many times when it comes in this form, he opens with "I let Myself be sought by those who did not ask," meaning I was drawn to this matter even without being asked, and therefore I will write a responsum about it. So here, for whoever wants to know, is the source of the expression.
Let us explain what is actually happening here. The verse in the previous chapter ended with Yeshayahu, out of the pain of his heart, crying out to Hashem, "Will You restrain Yourself over these things, Hashem, will You be silent and afflict us so greatly?" Will You continue to be silent, and afflict us so greatly? According to the Malbim, the meaning was: Master of the Universe, when will You answer us "exceedingly," an answer that satisfies our question. And then the Malbim says, following these words, that as it were the prophet became very moved, stopped his poetic expression, the strings of the harp of eloquence fell silent until now, he made a great pause, returned to stillness, and in our chapter, which is the next chapter, there is an answer to these matters.
The Holy One, blessed be He, answers him, "I let Myself be sought by those who did not ask." You ask why I am silent? You ask why I do not answer you? For I let Myself be sought, I made Myself available to them through My prophets for this nation, but "those who did not ask," they did not go to inquire from the mouth of the prophet through whom I make Myself available to them. They took no interest. More than that, He says, "I let Myself be found by those who did not seek Me." This means I make Myself available to a nation that did not seek Me, to a nation that did not come to seek out Hashem, and I stand and say to them, "Here I am, here I am," and does it help? Is this nation willing to seek Me, to ask Me, to inquire of Me? When I am already crying out to it, "Here I am, I am already here, you do not need to search for Me." The Holy One, blessed be He, says, "to a nation not called by My name." This nation does not even want to be called by My name, does not want to be called the nation of the God of Israel, by the name of Hashem, does not want to. What are we? One of the nations of the world. We are "not called by My name," they do not want to be called the nation of this God.
The Malbim says, notice, it is written here "I let Myself be sought by those who did not ask, I let Myself be found by those who did not seek Me." The Malbim says that asking comes together with seeking, meaning this: notice here, "I let Myself be sought by those who did not ask," that is, if they had asked, I would have made Myself available to them. Being sought here is really the answer to what they ask. The Malbim says this is like one who inquires through the judgment of the Urim veTumim of the prophet, then Hashem makes Himself available to him. You asked and Hashem made Himself available to you, meaning He is willing to create a connection with you, that is what "made Himself available to you" means. In contrast, one who "seeks," to seek means one is working. "I have strayed like a lost sheep, seek Your servant." That is, seeking is with regard to a lost thing. When a person seeks, he finds what he lost. The Holy One, blessed be He, says, "I let Myself be found," you have something you lost, and it is the Master of the Universe, "I let Myself be found," "by those who did not seek." But this nation did not seek Me, they do not search for what they lost. That is, the supreme providence, the Master of the Universe, was lost to them, but they do not search for Him. They do not seek Him, they do not want to know where Hashem is. They have substitutes, as we will soon see.
"I spread out My hands all day long to a rebellious people, who walk in the way that is not good, after their own thoughts." "I spread out My hands," the Radak explains, in order to receive them in repentance, but the people do not come. They walk in the way that is not good, meaning an evil way; as a euphemism one says "the way that is not good." The Malbim explains that the meaning is "I spread out My hands," I went to them, I sought them, I inquired of them, I spread out My hands like one who waits for another to come to him, and sees that he does not come, and begins to reach out his hands in all sorts of directions, where is he? I spread out My hands to see from where, where he is. And the Holy One, blessed be He, says, not once and not twice but "I spread out My hands all day long." But did it help? It was to a rebellious people, a defiant people, who always go after the way that is not good, after their thoughts, which are evil thoughts. And after they constantly think and deliberate over the path they will choose, in the end to what conclusions do their thoughts bring them? To the way that is not good. That is, their mind and thoughts are constantly on which way to choose, and in the end they always choose the evil way.
"The people who provoke Me to My face continually, sacrificing in gardens and burning incense upon bricks." Now He will describe what they did do. The Holy One, blessed be He, says, I made Myself available to them, I turned to them, I sent them My prophets, but they did not seek Me. What did they seek? "The people who provoke Me to My face continually." What did they do? "Sacrificing in gardens." They set up idolatry in their gardens, "and burning incense there" upon the bricks. They would place bricks, heat them, and upon that burn incense to idolatry. The Radak explains that "who provoke Me to My face" means also in My house, in Yerushalayim, in the Beit HaMikdash, to My face they commit abominations. "And under every leafy tree," that is in gardens. And what is "burning incense upon bricks"? According to the Radak, he explains that when they would fire bricks, they would burn incense upon them to idolatry during the firing. He does not explain why, but the plain meaning is that it was, as it were, to consecrate the house from its very beginning to idolatry, so that already at the moment they prepared and fired the bricks for burning, preparing the bricks to build a house from them, it would be from its very beginning for the sake of idolatry, firing it for the sake of idolatry, placing incense upon it so that it would be for the sake of idolatry. And we will see another expression of this later on.
The Malbim explains, not only do they sin, they also do it to provoke Me, "provoking Me to My face continually." What does this mean? It means in order that He should see and be angry. They sacrifice in gardens to idolatry and burn incense upon bricks. What does this mean? The Malbim says, they do not want to perform idolatry in public, because outwardly they present themselves as God-fearing people, as wholesome people. So what did they do? They would burn incense upon the bricks so they would not be noticed. And "upon the bricks" means, as it were, in a courtyard, in an inner place, not on altars outside, because outwardly one shows himself as a righteous person. So he burns incense upon the brick, what is called privately in his own courtyard, so that no one would see what he does. And so what comes out of this? Whom are they really provoking? As if they perform the sins only before Me. Not before others. As if only so that I should be angry. That is the meaning of "to My face," as if our purpose is only between us and You, for after all no one knows of it. Our purpose is only to provoke You.
"Who sit among the graves and lodge in secret places, who eat the flesh of the pig, and the broth of abominable things is in their vessels." "Who sit among the graves," Rashi says, they would sit in the grave, because a spirit of impurity rests in the grave, and then the demons would come and reveal themselves to them, revealing to them future events. "And in the secret places," the "secret places" are the corpses of the dead. Why are they called "secret places"? Rashi explains because they are confined in a siege, inside the grave, unable to come out. The Radak explains that "who sit among the graves" is to inquire of the dead, not of the demons as Rashi explains, but they would request through this that the dead reveal themselves to them, and this is one of the forbidden things: it is forbidden to go to sleep in a cemetery in order that the dead reveal themselves to him. In contrast, the Radak brings Targum Yonatan, which fits well with what we explained earlier, that they would build a house from the outset and their houses would from the outset be consecrated for the sake of idolatry. Yonatan explains "they dwell in houses built from the dust of graves." They sit in houses that they built from the dust of graves. That is, again the same idea, they wanted from the outset that this house be built with that spirit of impurity, so they would take dust from the grave, use it as binding material for mortar to build their house.
"And lodge in the secret places." Where did they sleep? In ruins. And ruins, as we know, are a place a person is forbidden to enter, because demons dwell there. And they specifically went there to the place of ruins, because there the harmful spirits appear. Demons are called "shedim"; I bring in the book Mishnat HaGilgulim that the reason demons are called "shedim" is that they are always found in a desolate place ("shadud"). A desolate place means in ruins, in wilderness, in places where no human foot treads. These are the places where demons dwell. And therefore here too he says they go to dwell in ruins, since there in the ruins those forces of impurity would reveal themselves to them. "Who eat the flesh of the pig." They transgress what is written in the Torah not to eat pig. "And the broth of abominable things," "piggulim" includes all the other impure animals. That is, do not think they content themselves only with pig; they eat whatever comes to hand, anything that moves. "The broth of abominable things." "Broth" refers to a mixture of all the other impure things. And "marak" (broth) is like what is written, "and pour out the broth." Why is broth called "marak"? Once we said because a husband comes home and asks his wife what there is to eat for lunch, and she says to him "marak" (broth), and he says to her, "what, only (rak)?" Well, that is one reason. But truly in the sources it is written that broth is because it is the "scouring" (meruk) of the meat. What is broth really? What is scoured out, comes out and is cleansed from the meat, that is the broth. And their vessels, one can recognize in them the scouring of the meat, meaning what comes out of the meat is the fat and the broth; anyone who looked at the vessels can recognize in them that pig meat was cooked in them, that abominable meat was cooked in them. That is, according to the Radak the meaning is that if he wants to atone, he will not be able to. You can see it, it is imprinted on his vessels, all the impurities that he ate.
The Malbim explains, according to the same approach he opened with earlier, that outwardly they present a respectable image of God-fearing people, and only in secret do they perform all their abominations. So he says they sit among the graves and lodge in the secret places. The places, the graves are a grave. The "secret places" are the filthy places where they throw the carcasses of animals. The Malbim maintains that "secret places" always refers to a place where they bury animal carcasses. As it is written, "you are cast from your grave like a loathsome branch (netzer)." What is a "loathsome branch"? It means like an animal that was thrown into a pit, that is called a "netzer." There it is called "secret places," to distinguish it from a grave, for a grave expresses a place where they cast the bodies of human beings. So "in the secret places they lodge," in the filthy places where they throw the carcasses of animals, there they go to hide from human beings. Why? Because, as we said, they do not want to be seen transgressing. So there they eat the flesh of the pig, in a place where none sees. "And the broth of abominable things is in their vessels." That is, the food, their vessels are saturated with the gravy of abominable things, they eat impure foods in an impure place hidden from human beings, and who sees it? Only the Holy One, blessed be He. As it were, the Holy One, blessed be He, says, I see that the broth of abominable things is in their vessels, I see that their vessels are saturated with the abominations of pig and other foul things, for as we explained they do everything in secret.
To such an extent, "who say, Keep to yourself, do not come near me, for I am holier than you. These are smoke in My nostrils, a fire that burns all day long." "Who say," they say to the righteous; when a righteous person comes to approach them, a true righteous person, not like them, a righteous person comes to draw near to him and they say to him, stand where you are, do not come too close. Why? "For I am holier than you," I am holier than you. Be careful, if you come and touch me, you could defile me. "I am holier than you," I am holier than you. So be careful, do not come near. The Malbim explains that they say, despite all these impurities with which they defile themselves in secret, they show themselves holy and pure before human beings, to the point that they say to the people, do not come near me for I am holier than you. According to the Malbim it is the same principle, but "I am holier than you" is explained differently. "Kidashticha" (I am holier than you) - we know that, for example, it is written regarding the altar, "whatever touches the altar shall be sanctified." What does this mean? Even if one brings up onto the altar a sacrifice that has some disqualification, it is valid for offering. Not all disqualifications, but many indeed. About this it is said, "whatever touches the altar shall be sanctified." As it were, the altar is so holy that even if an unfit sacrifice touched it, it is valid, it is offered, it becomes sanctified. So too here, he says, do not touch me for I sanctify you. He holds himself to be so holy that whoever touches him becomes holy like him. "Kidashticha," you will become holy like me the moment you touch me. And you are impure, so if you are impure, how do you come to touch me who am so holy? It is forbidden for you, it is as if you are touching something sacred. The Holy One, blessed be He, says, "these," that is, this terrible hypocrisy, about this the Holy One, blessed be He, says, these are smoke in My nostrils. It is like smoke rising in My nostrils, where the smoke chokes off a person's ability to breathe. "A fire that burns all day long." All day long the fire of the Holy One, blessed be He, as it were, is anger burning from the terrible deeds these people perform.
"Behold, it is written before Me, I will not be silent, but I will repay, and I will repay into their bosom." The Holy One, blessed be He, says, behold it is written before Me; Rashi explains, their sin is written before Me, their sentence has already been decreed and sealed. As we know that afterwards there was exile. The Radak explains that "written" comes to convey that this matter will not be erased quickly. It is written before Me in order to remember it permanently. "But I will repay, and I will repay." What is the repetition? I will repay them fully for the evils of their fathers, as we will see in the next verse, which join with their own evils. So this is "I will repay, and I will repay." What is called a double payment. "And I will repay into their bosom." Even though I am destined to pay the recompense of the sons after them, but now, into their bosom, I will pay already to themselves, to the fathers themselves, into their bosom, meaning to them themselves.
The Malbim explains, "behold, it is written before Me." The Malbim says, sometimes a person writes for many generations, to remember something in long years to come. But the Holy One, blessed be He, says, with Me it is not so; rather the writing is so that "I will not be silent, but I will repay." This means the writing is in order to do the thing immediately. Sometimes we too want to write something so that we will remember in a few years. Sometimes we write something in order to do it now. I place a note before me, remember to arrange this and this matter. So the Holy One, blessed be He, says, as it were, it is written before Me, not as a memorial for distant times, but so that I will not be silent, but I will repay. Through the writing I will always be roused and not be silent until I repay them the punishment for what they deserve. And it is not that I will pay the punishment only into the bosom of their sons, but the payments will be into their bosom, meaning to them themselves.
"Your iniquities and the iniquities of your fathers together, said Hashem, who burned incense upon the mountains and blasphemed Me upon the hills, and I will measure out their former deed into their bosom." "Your iniquities and the iniquities of your fathers together." Both your iniquities and the iniquities of your fathers, these join with those. These iniquities together with those prolong your exile. "Said Hashem, who burned incense upon the mountains," that they practiced idolatry, that they blasphemed Hashem. And why? Because I commanded them not to practice idolatry, and one who practices idolatry is like one who denies the essence, and they burned incense upon the mountains, upon the hills they blasphemed Me. The Holy One, blessed be He, says, "and I will measure out their former deed into their bosom." The Radak explains that the meaning is: first I will measure the deed, meaning the evil deed they did, and give them a punishment corresponding to it into their bosom. First to the fathers. And afterwards I will give also to the sons. And so it comes out, "I will repay, and I will repay into their bosom": first, "into their bosom" the first is to the fathers, and "I will repay" I will also pay to their sons, that their sons too will be stricken for the iniquity of their fathers. And the reason is, as Chazal say here, when they hold the deeds of their fathers in their hands. When they hold the deeds of their fathers in their hands, they too are stricken on account of their fathers, for their iniquities join with the iniquities of the fathers.
The Malbim explains, "your iniquities and the iniquities of your fathers together." The Malbim says, I will repay them also the iniquity of their fathers. And I will repay into their bosom your iniquities and the iniquity of your fathers; I will repay you together. That is, from the Radak it implies that He turns to the fathers and says to them, you will pay a price and also your sons. In contrast, from the Malbim it implies that in fact those who sin here are the sons, and He turns to them and says, you will pay a price and also your fathers. So that in fact He is turning here to the sons. Both your iniquities and the iniquity of your fathers. And the difference is that the iniquity of your fathers was done openly. Your fathers burned incense upon the mountains, upon the hills they blasphemed Me. They did not do things in secret. Achav placed idolatry on every furrow and furrow. They practiced idolatry openly. Not in gardens, not in graves, not in secret places like you, who go and practice idolatry in secret. Rather they would stand on the mountains to burn incense to idolatry, and on the hill, which is beneath the mountain, they would stand to blaspheme and curse. And therefore you will bear the iniquity of your fathers. But at first, "and I will measure out their former deed into their bosom." At first, the Malbim says, I will measure out to the sons, not as the Radak explained, meaning to the fathers. Rather at first I will measure out to the sons their deed into their bosom, for what you did out of hypocrisy as the Malbim explained, for this you will receive first. And afterwards I will repay them also for the iniquity of their fathers. Because their iniquities are worse than the iniquities of their fathers. For the iniquities of their fathers were indeed severe, upon the mountains and under every leafy tree, but at least it was in the open. In contrast, with you, who do it in secret, so outwardly you still present yourselves as righteous, and the people are mistaken about you, thinking you are respectable and upright people, while their iniquities are in secret. As we saw was the case in the generation of Yoshiyahu, that in the generation of Yoshiyahu he was sure he could go to war against the king of Egypt. Why? Because his generation were righteous. What he did not know was that the men he would send to the houses in order to check whether there was idolatry there would go in and check every corner, and there was no idolatry. What they did not know was that when a door was opened, when two doors were opened or a door was opened, the idolatry was engraved on the back of the door. And when they opened the door, the image of the idolatry was hidden in the wall, and he would check, close the door again, and again the idolatry returned to its place. And for this iniquity we see that in the end Yoshiyahu was killed, "the breath of our nostrils, the anointed of Hashem, was caught in their corruptions." Meaning in their iniquities. Whoever wants to hear this in greater detail, we discuss it in Eichah, "Eichah yu'am zahav," which was composed by Yirmiyahu concerning Yoshiyahu, about this matter, about this deed. So that in fact their iniquity is worse, because they did things in secret. And if there are iniquities in the open, at least one knows there is something to fix. But if there are iniquities in secret, then Yoshiyahu is sure the people are righteous. I sent watchmen of modesty, I sent watchmen of holiness, watchmen of idolatry, they all said everything is clean. But what is really happening? That he did not know.
"Thus said Hashem, as the new wine is found in the cluster, and one says, Do not destroy it, for there is a blessing in it, so I will do for the sake of My servants, not to destroy the whole." "As the new wine is found in the cluster." Rashi brings the Midrash of Chazal, which is also Targum Yonatan, "like Noach who was found righteous in the generation of the flood." The new wine is Noach. Noach who was sweet, "in the cluster" (eshkol), in the generation that was bereaved (meshukal), from the language of bereavement (shekhol). It was a generation of bereavement, and who was there the sole "new wine"? It was Noach. It may very well also be that he compares him to this because Noach, as we recall, when he came out of the ark, planted a vine. So perhaps also for this reason he mentions the matter of the new wine. But here he says it in praise, that he was the sweet fruit in the generation of bereavement. "As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one says, Do not destroy it, for there is a blessing in it," do not destroy Noach, there is a blessing in him, there is a merit through which there will be a continuing generation. "So I will do for the sake of My servants, not to destroy the whole." So I will do for the sake of each and every righteous person found among them, and in their merit I will not destroy the whole.
The Radak explains that here He speaks to the children of the exile. He says to them, do not despair of the redemption over what I said, that I will exact payment from you, so that if so you would say, well then, we have nothing to hope for. The Holy One, blessed be He, says to them, even so I will not abandon you. And in any case I will bring you out of the exile, and I compare you to a cluster. Like a cluster that is already ripe enough to produce new wine from it, when "new wine" refers to the pressing of the grapes, according to the Radak's explanation. If a person comes to destroy it, his fellow will say to him, do not destroy it for there is a blessing in it. What is the blessing? One can press from it and produce wine from it. What will you say, there are seeds in it, there are skins in it, there are things in it that are not good? He says, even so, leave it for the wine, the good thing that does come out of it. So too he says here, in the people of Israel there are skins, there are seeds, there are sinners. The Holy One, blessed be He, says, even so I will leave this cluster, because from this cluster one can press and produce new wine, one can produce wine from it, and that is a blessing to the world. As it is written in the prophecy of Yechezkel, "and I will purge from you the rebels and those who transgress against Me." And then this means that in fact when the people of Israel will leave the skins, the seeds, the Holy One, blessed be He, "I will purge from you." "I will purge" means He will select, will remove, will bring out, will sift out the wicked, and those who remain will be the new wine, will be the wine that is choice.
The Malbim explains that here in fact there is a conclusion to the entire prophecy as a whole, that it is essentially a prophecy about the future, coming to say why the exile is so prolonged, why the people of Israel are still not redeemed. The Holy One, blessed be He, says to him, the exile is long because you still do not have merit. And He informs him: know that in the end the transgressors of Israel will be punished, and the righteous are those who will remain. As it is written, "and I will refine them as one refines silver and test them as one tests gold." "Two portions will perish" etc., harsh things. That those who remain will be specifically those who held fast to the service of Hashem. "As the new wine is found in the cluster," according to the Malbim this too is a parable, but not necessarily about wine; rather, like a vine that has entirely spoiled, produced entirely wild grapes, if only one bit of new wine is found, meaning if one cluster is found that this cluster was not spoiled, then the owner of the vine will say, do not destroy it. Do not uproot this whole vine. And leave whatever you should call your right hand. Rather leave it, for behold you will see it produces grapes. But there are here many wild grapes, they are not fit for eating at all. Yes, but there is one cluster of good grapes; leave the vine. So too, as it were, the Holy One, blessed be He, spares the vine, which is the people of Israel. Why? Because there are these righteous ones who are of the category of the cluster. "And I will bring forth from Yaakov a seed, and from Yehudah an heir of My mountains, and My chosen ones will inherit it, and My servants will dwell there." "And I will bring forth from Yaakov a seed," meaning there will be from him a blessing, a seed worthy of Yaakov. And to these are the ten tribes; from them I will bring forth a good seed. And what of the tribe of Yehudah? The tribe of Yehudah always includes Binyamin, who are the last to be exiled; from them I will bring forth an heir. And they will inherit My mountains, meaning the mountains of Yehudah. "My chosen ones and My servants will dwell there." And My chosen ones and My servants, these are the chosen, those who walked in the way of Hashem, they will dwell there. They will dwell, they will have a permanent dwelling in the place where the redemption will be, meaning in the Mishkan and in the Beit HaMikdash and in Yerushalayim. And here the Radak says, notice that he mentions both exiles, both Yehudah, which is really Yehudah and Binyamin, and also Yaakov, to whom are the ten tribes. And here he really wants to hint that they should not despair of the redemption. There is a dispute in the Gemara whether the ten tribes are destined to return or not. And here he really wants to tell them, they are destined to return. "And I will bring forth from Yaakov a seed," they are the ten tribes; they too will return and inherit them. And behold, My mountains, which are Mount Zion and the Temple Mount, they will return and be built, so that the redemption will in any case take place. Only, before it there will be a sifting, a refining and a purifying, but the redemption in the end will in any case ultimately be fulfilled.