Berachot, daf kaf-tet amud bet. Rabbi Yehoshua omer: “Haholech bimkom sakanah (danger) mitpalel tefillah ketzarah (short prayer) ve'omer: Hosha Hashem et amcha et she'erit Yisrael, bechol parashat ha'ibur yiheyu tzorcheihem lefanecha, Baruch Atah Hashem, Shome'a tefillah” (Save, Hashem, Your people, the remnant of Israel; in every matter of pregnancy, may their needs be before You. Blessed are You, Hashem, Who hears prayer). We had this Mishnah. What was “parashat ha'ibur”? Rashi says, mefaresh baGemara (explains in the Gemara). We’ll see what we’re talking about.
What is ibbur? Ibbur could mean, first of all, to be pregnant. It could be that. Ibbur is the ibbur hashanah (the intercalated year). It could mean something else, too. What does it have to do with the tefillah ketzarah? What are we talking about? “Mai parashat ha'ibur?” Rav Chisda said in the name of Mar Ukva: “Afilu besha'ah she'attah mitmaleh aleihem evrah.” Evrah? Ka'as (anger). “Evrah vaza'am” (anger and wrath), as we’ll see soon in the Haggadah. “Ke'ishah ubarah”—it’s funny, it’s the same word. “Afilu besha'ah she'attah mitmaleh aleihem evrah, ke'ishah ubarah, yiheyu kol tzorcheihem lefanecha.” If you get upset, like a lady who is pregnant. The idea is that even if you’re filled with anger, you still take care of their needs. What does the comparison to a pregnant woman mean? Maybe she’s more sensitive, less patient. Or maybe it means that she is full. You get filled with anger, just as “ke'ishah ubarah” means filled with a baby; so, too, a person can be filled with anger. It’s strange that evrah and ubarah are the same word. That’s why I thought a pregnant woman might be more sensitive and more easily angered.
The general meaning of the tefillah ketzarah is: “HaKadosh Baruch Hu (the Holy One, blessed be He), even if we’re not zocheh (meritorious), even if we don’t have our own zechuyot (merits), please continue having rachmanut (compassion) on us.” Even if You have evrah against us—that is, You’re upset with us—continue providing for us. So why bring in evrah here? Maybe in a mekom sakanah, or even when you’re in an angry mood, still provide all our tzerachim (needs). The person has no yishuv hada'at (settled state of mind). When you're bimkom sakanah, you pray tefillah ketzarah because you won't be able to concentrate. Maybe in a place of sakanah, you need more zechuyot to get out of it. Why compare that to ishah ubarah? It can’t be a coincidence that it’s the same word.
Here they bring an interesting explanation. Lich'orah tamu'ah (apparently, it is puzzling): if the intention of “parashat ha'ibur” is that You are filled with evrah toward them, why add “ke'ishah ubarah”? If ibbur means being full, like a year that gets full, the comparison to a woman isn’t needed. But since ibbur has two meanings—evrah, meaning ka'as, and ishah me'uberet, a pregnant woman—the wording of the prayer, “bechol parashat ha'ibur,” includes every meaning of the word ibbur. That is, both evrah, the language of anger, and ishah ubarah. That is the Maharsha.
He adds, based on the words of Rashbi in Rashi and the Anaf Yosef, that mentioning a pregnant woman means that even though she experiences pain for a time, she has joy afterward when the child is born. Even so, “yiheyu tzorcheihem lefanecha”—may their needs be before You, to ease their burden. That would be a good ending. The Mishnah says that a person walking in a place of danger prays this prayer because, while walking there, his sins are brought to mind, and as a result HaKadosh Baruch Hu becomes angry with him. That is specifically when he is compelled to go through a dangerous place; if he is not compelled, he is forbidden to go there. That is the Noda BiYehudah.
Chilu. There is another explanation: Rav Chisda said in the name of Mar Ukva, “Afilu besha'ah shehem ovrim al divrei Torah”—even when they transgress the words of Torah—“yeheyu kol tzorcheihem lefanecha.” What does “yeheyu kol tzorcheihem lefanecha” mean? May all their needs be before You. Rashi explains: “Yeheyu kol tzorcheihem geluyim lefanecha lerachem aleihem” (may all their needs be revealed before You, so You will have compassion on them). Even when they transgress. Rashi explains “parashat ha'ibur” as their turning away toward transgression. The wording is strange: it says parashat ha'ibur as part of the prayer, but one might expect perishat ha'ibur.
The Sages taught: “Hamehalech bimkom gedudei chayah velistim” (one who walks in a place of bands of wild animals and bandits) “mitpalel tefillah ketzarah.” What is the tefillah ketzarah? Rabbi Eliezer says: “Aseh retzoncha bashamayim mima'al veten nachat ruach lire'echa mitachat vehatov be'einecha aseh” (Do Your will in heaven above, grant contentment to those who fear You below, and do what is good in Your eyes). Rashi says, “Baruch Atah Hashem shome'a tefillah.” So what's the point of tefillat haderech? Similar. It's not, though. When we learned the Mishnah, was that a replacement of the regular tefillah or was this an extra? Rashi explains, “Aseh retzoncha bashamayim, she'ein sham chet (sin).” Your ratzon in shamayim is clear; it is not affected by chet. “Ve'ein retzoncha aleihem ela letov”—Your will toward them is only for good. “Va'avor latachtonim al retzoncha.” The chet happens in the tachtonim (lower realms). In olam haba (the World to Come), there is no chet. It is above the guf (body). The chet doesn’t go up, because it belongs to the guf.
Rav Chaim mi-Volozhin asks a question we discussed when we learned Sanhedrin and the Rambam, in the introduction to perek Chelek. How is it possible for a chet, which is the lowest of the gufani (physical), to have an effect or a nafka mina (practical consequence) in gehenam (Gehenna), which is a ruchani (spiritual) place with no guf (body)? You could be gufani, productive and good; that's the higher part of the gufani. The lowest part of the gufani is when you only care about a small pleasure for a quick moment; that's an issur. Want to eat something, want to be with a girl who's asur—it's the lowest of the lowest of the guf. If you sinned with the guf, shouldn’t you receive a guf punishment? How can a sin involving the guf bring a spiritual punishment? They don’t speak the same language. How can there be a spiritual punishment for something physical? That is the question. Even in batei dinim (rabbinical court), when they used to punish the body, the punishment had to be connected to a bodily function.
For example, the Gemara says lashon hara (harmful speech) is worse than shefichut damim (bloodshed) and giluy arayot (forbidden sexual relations). So why isn’t there a punishment in olam hazeh (this world), in a beit din, for lashon hara at least at the same level? Someone replies, “But there is. It’s called slander.” But you don’t take a person to beit din and say he did slander and he’s chayav mitah (killed). People get fined. The rishonim ask this question and answer that there was no physical harm; it was ruach (spirit) harm. It was speech, so the punishment would have to be at that level. The levels are nefesh (soul; life-force), ruach, and neshamah (soul). Nefesh is the level of the body. If you do something with the body, you get a punishment with the body. Even here, the voice is something semi-physical, let's just call it. The severity of the punishment has to match the severity of the sin.
Back to the question in Nefesh HaChaim: once you get rid of your guf and all you have is your neshamah, how can a punishment of the neshamah fix the sin, or why would that be fair? The chet stays here; it is all lower. So there is no midah keneged midah (measure for measure)? That’s his question: tzarich iyun gadol (requires great analysis). He gives one answer.
This matters for chinuch (education), too. Sometimes you try to punish your kids with something that is appropriate to what they did. If a kid is chutzpa'dik (insolent) with his mouth, how do you punish him? Generally speaking, it has to match. It’s important not to punish children religiously. I give you a Beracha (blessing) that your children should always love shul (synagogue), because they get to an age where that changes. If a school punishes a child by making him learn more limudei kodesh (religious studies) with a chavruta (study partner), that teaches him that learning is a punishment. I called the rebbe and said, “Never do that again to any kid, and especially not mine. You’re teaching him that it’s a punishment to learn with somebody.” The reply was that it was make-up work, not punishment. If he missed an hour of class and then learns an hour, fine; but that wasn’t the case. From the child’s point of view, it was a punishment. I found a new one: taking away their favorite sneakers. For them, that’s really bad.
Escalado.
The Rambam says that kavod and ga'avah (pride) are not physical; you can’t touch them. Since we're guf, and over there there is no guf, it's like explaining colors to a blind person, he says there in the fifth definition. Yet people will give up family, comfort, and many other things for kavod or ga'avah. People can be destroyed because they won’t say, “I made a mistake,” or even stay quiet; they need a narrative to keep their kavod intact. It may cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars they don’t have, but they can’t let the world know. That is a kavod problem. The Rambam says this is part of human nature. How can you quantify or explain kavod and self-respect? You can’t. It can be stronger than family values, any value, or money. People may pay a fortune to restore their kavod. The Rambam says that understanding this feeling can give you a glimpse of concepts in olam haba that are not physical: concepts we understand because we have experienced them, even though they are not tangible or quantifiable.
Rav Chaim mi-Volozhin gives the example of someone who steals a lot of money and then uses it to buy a beautiful house and a beautiful car. People give him kavod. Someone comes to town, and you don’t know his story; he has a beautiful house, car, and jewelry. People give him kavod and tzedakah. That kavod is above the guf, so Gehinnom can match it. Ein hachi nami (indeed; that is so), this only gives a glimpse of how it works. Rav Chaim is not saying the punishment matches the actual action: the question remains, because the action itself stays in the guf. But something that goes above the guf can be matched. I don’t know how to understand that in other areas. He gives one example that is understandable, and now we have to figure out the rest. It isn’t simple, but it is an interesting teirutz (answer).
How does this work with an aveirah that is only gufani and has nothing to do with kavod? This example works for inyan mamon (a matter of money), or for stealing if kavod comes along with it. But if someone is chotei (one who sins) with arayot, and does it betzinah (in private), no one knows, so the kavod aspect doesn’t arise. On Yom Kippur, we say Al Chet about using our guf for the wrong things. Maybe the time spent doing it is a more spiritual aspect. But time is quantifiable, and at the end of the day it’s a guf thing. Even satisfaction isn’t material; it may be semi-spiritual.
Maybe once you have satisfaction from the aveirah, that satisfaction is what brings the punishment. But food is hard to explain. With arayot, perhaps someone feels he doesn’t have enough satisfaction in life, or is single and can’t find a match, and does an aveirah that gives him self-esteem. There’s no kavod involved. Not everything is about kavod; the cases are different. But non-kosher food is hard to apply to that logic. Pleasure is physical, but satisfaction may be different. A ta'anug gufani (physical pleasure) is part of the guf; otherwise the question doesn’t arise. An aveirah without ta'anug isn’t part of the guf experience. Nobody does that. Exactly: it has to involve ta'anug. These things are complex; it isn’t simply that what you did is matched on the material level. Other things can build on top of it. Then it is aveirah lehach'is (transgression for defiance), which is something else. There he has a serious psychological problem.
How did we get there? We were talking about the upper realm, the chet and the ratzon. If you look only at the upper world, your ratzon, Hashem, isn’t harmed, changed, or influenced by the aveirah. The aveirah belongs to the bottom; Your ratzon belongs to the top. The only way Your ratzon could change from being physically enjoyed or coming down to the lower world is if You look down at our behavior. Then Your ratzon may change because You are looking at the end result.
That is the language of Rashi: “Aseh retzoncha bashamayim”—why does it say bashamayim? So that Your ratzon should remain in shamayim, where there is no chet. It doesn’t get there. Your ratzon is only connected to tov (good), even toward the bottom, because there is no ra (evil) there; there is only tov. The chet and the ra are only at the bottom. “Va'avor latachtonim al retzoncha”: go down to the tachtonim, but don’t follow what they do there. I might have said birtzoncha—to do Your will, which is good, and not punish me for my sins. What does “al retzoncha” mean? Perhaps it means to go against what happens in the tachtonim, to act lifnim mishurat hadin (beyond the letter of the law). Or, more simply, don’t execute judgment on them. Do what You want to do above, despite those who go against Your ratzon below.
But there’s a problem with that. If someone is in a dark alley and thugs are coming to get him, and he says, “Hashem tefillah, Hashem,” asking Hashem to do His ratzon, only good, against their will, is that the point? The answer is that it isn’t directed against the thugs; it is about the person praying. He is being judged. When he goes through a mekom sakanah, Hashem considers whether he merits being saved. He says, “Don’t look at what I did just now. Look at me up there; I’m a tzaddik (righteous person).” That is another aspect of our religion that is hard to understand. What does it mean that Hashem has to look at the files? When they say the Satan comes, does he open a file? This is how we understand it, even though it is hard.
That also explains how teshuvah (repentance) works. You did an action; how does teshuvah erase it? It is all upstairs. There is no chet upstairs, so teshuvah erases the spiritual bad aspect of it. It downloads the file and deletes it. Al pi kabbalah (according to Kabbalah), the higher you go, the less impact the chet has: in nefesh, full impact; in ruach, little; in neshamah, no impact. In the world of neshamah, there is no space for chet. It is like a flawless diamond; you can’t make it dirty. Teshuvah may be on the second level, or, as they say, teshuvah goes down from there. The world of teshuvah is above even the world of Atzilut, in chelek daled (part four) of Nefesh HaChaim.
The idea is not that an aveirah affects your neshamah. Your nefesh. The neshamah is never inside the body, because the neshamah and the body don’t go together. Rav Chaim Volozhin explains it like an elevator—or, better, you are like an elevator. The neshamah is there; you can come closer to it or farther away from it. That's all you could do. Your nefesh is inside you, and your ruach is too, but the neshamah is outside you. It is like vinegar and oil; they don’t mix. When you are very holy, you are close to the neshamah; when you are very far, you are far from it. So when it says “yatzah nishmato” (his soul departed), that isn’t the neshamah; it is the nefesh. They often use neshamah that way, but in the world of kabbalah, the nefesh, ruach, and neshamah are distinct: the neshamah is never inside the body. It doesn’t get hurt, harmed, cut, or dirty.