ספר בראשית

Genesis 40,10. “and there were three branches on the ‎vine.” According to one (Rabbi Eleazar hamodai) of numerous ‎allegorical explanations in Chulin 92, the vine is symbolic of ‎Jerusalem; whereas the three branches are symbolic of the ‎Temple, the King, and the High Priest, respectively. The words: ‎והיא כפורחת עלתה נצה הבשילו אשכלתיה ענבים‎, usually ‎translated as: “it had barely blossomed when out of it came its ‎blossoms and its clusters ripened into grapes,” is understood ‎allegorically by the Talmud. The reference is to the young priests ‎who will mature and offer libations in the Temple. In order to ‎explain this somewhat far fetched allegory, although the one ‎preferred by the Talmud, our author quotes Yuma 29 where the ‎rhetorical question of why Queen Esther has been compared to an ‎אילה‎, a gazelle, hind, the Talmud defining the gazelle in psalms ‎‎22,1 as ‎אילת השחר‎, Queen Esther as being like a gazelle in the ‎morning, i.e. at the end of the night, sees in Esther and her ‎experiences the last chapter belonging to the period of history ‎described in the Bible. No overt miracles in Jewish history have ‎been reported in the Bible subsequent to her period.What did the Talmud have in mind when suggesting that ‎after Mordechai and Esther, [in whose time these ‎‎”miracles,” were already not overt, Ed.] no more miracles ‎occurred?‎We must distinguish between two kinds of wars. Usually, ‎when we speak of “war,” we refer to an armed confrontation ‎between warring nations.The second type of “war,” is one that originated in G’d ‎subjecting the Jewish people to attacks by external enemies, in ‎order to strengthen their faith in Him when He would save them ‎from a fate which they were powerless to escape by any other ‎means. Psalms 91,2 refers to the psalmist acknowledging such ‎miraculous escapes of the Jewish people. It is remarkable that the ‎psalmist, in referring to his trust in the Lord, does so in the ‎future tense, i.e. ‎אלוקי אבטח בו‎, “my G’d in Whom I will put my ‎trust,” instead of, as we would have expected, “in Whom I have ‎put my trust.” The psalmist acknowledges that he now ‎understands the purpose of the “war” that had befallen his ‎people as having been a test, teaching the Jewish people to put ‎their trust only in the Lord. The same theme is found in psalms ‎‎118,10 ‎כל גויים סבבוני בשם ה' כי אמילם‎, “all nations have ‎surrounded me; by the name of the Lord I will surely cut them ‎down.” The psalmist does not predict what he is about to do, but ‎refers to what G’d had in mind by allowing His people to face such ‎impossible odds, i.e. to strengthen their faith when they will be ‎saved by Him. The psalmist makes it even plainer In verse 21 of ‎the same psalm, when the words ‎אודך כי עניתני ותהי לי לישועה‎, must ‎be understood as: “I will express my thanks to You for having ‎afflicted me so that You could demonstrate how You will be my ‎salvation.”‎When G’d “rescues” the Jewish people, this occurs in either of ‎two ways. The most easily recognizable way are overt miracles in ‎which His mastery over nature is demonstrated by His breaking ‎all the “rules” that scientists have taught us are inviolate. The ‎best known examples of this are the 10 plagues G’d visited upon ‎the Egyptians, crowned by the splitting of the sea of reeds in ‎which the Egyptian army drowned to a man, while the Israelites ‎crossed the bottom of that sea safely. Although in the song of ‎thanks by the Jewish people after the drowning of the Egyptians ‎the text is full of G’d being lauded for His performing “wonders,” ‎‎(Exodus 15,11) what are “wonders” performed by G’d in our eyes, ‎are, of course, nothing extraordinary when viewed from His ‎vantage point, seeing that He had made the rules, He is certainly ‎able to suspend them when it suits Him. The Jewish people ‎praised Him not so much for what He had done, but for having ‎found the Jewish people worthy to be saved by such spectacular ‎means, involving the undoing of what G’d had done during the ‎six days of creation.‎