ספר בראשית

Genesis 49,19. “Gad shall be raided by raiders, but he ‎shall raid at their heels.” We can best understand this ‎blessing by referring to the Talmud shabbat 151 where we ‎are told that when human beings demonstrate that they are ‎merciful to G’d’s creatures, G’d in turn will have mercy on them.” ‎Man’s actions trigger responses in heaven; in this instance, ‎positive responses. What possible example of Gad’s having ‎preformed acts of mercy do we know of? We have learned on folio ‎‎104 of the tractate Shabbat that the very sequence of the ‎letters ‎ג‎ and ‎ד‎ which make up Gad’s name are an acronym ‎meaning ‎גומל דלים‎, “relating with loving kindness to the poor.” ‎When a person deals charitably with the poor and he expects that ‎G’d will in turn reward him for this by causing him to forget ‎about the impending reward at the time the charitable deed is ‎performed, so that this person has attained an even higher ‎spiritual level thereby. Yaakov alludes to this when saying words ‎which at first glance sound as if he is repeating himself, whereas ‎actually he hints that certain actions inspired by one ‎consideration may prove to be even more profitable (spiritually) ‎when carried out altogether altruistically. The word ‎עקב‎ in our ‎verse may be understood as in Deut. 7,12 ‎והיה עקב תשמעון‎, “it will ‎be as a result (automatic) of your hearkening to G’ds laws, etc.” In ‎that verse G’d promises that He will honour the terms of His ‎covenant with the Jewish people. The word ‎גוד‎ may be related to ‎Daniel 4,11 (Aramaic) ‎גודו אילנא‎, “cut down the tree,” i.e. when ‎the Jewish people perform deeds of loving kindness their enemies ‎will be cut down by G’d. According to Targum Onkelos on ‎Deut.7,12 who renders ‎עקב תשמעון ‏‎ as ‎חלף תקבלון‎, “what you will ‎receive in exchange,” this is what is meant in our verse as ‎יגוד‎, “as ‎reward for forgetting about any reward”.‎