‘The Dead Do Not Praise G-d’

During the past week, we marked Lag Ba’Omer, which tradition associates with the passing of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai. At the conclusion of the main text of the Zohar, near the beginning of the section known as the Idra Zuta, we learn of the events immediately preceding this occurrence.

Rabbi Shimon begins to address his disciples by referencing the verse used as the title for this essay (Tehillim 115). He asserts that the living are all as if dead before the eternity of the Living G-d. However, the righteous are said at least to have lived, while those who are not righteous really never lived at all. After he relates his final Torah sermon, Rabbi Shimon passes from this world, and his son and his disciples all mourn his death and describe with great poignancy how bereft they feel. It seems to them in that moment that all the light of Torah has left the world. This is more or less how the text of the Zohar ends.

In our Torah reading this week, we will, G-d willing, conclude the Book of Vayikra for the year. This also ends on a difficult note, as Moshe relates the consequences, both good and otherwise, of following the commands of Hashem or failing to do so. This is the first iteration of the Tochecha, the “warnings” of the Torah, given as the historical events of the sojourn in the wilderness are unfolding. Following the deaths of Nadav and Avihu, Moshe has just finished teaching all the laws of purity associated with the Service in the Mishkan and the special rules that set the kohanim apart. The Torah goes into great detail regarding the unpleasantness that will follow if we do not uphold the covenant G-d made with us.

The end of Sefer Vayikra, like the end of the Zohar, is preoccupied with death and corruption. We learn about purity and holiness, but we also recognize that desecration is almost inevitable in the world that we inhabit. We know enough to understand that there is Divine Mercy in the world and that G-d performs miracles for our benefit, yet still we act in ways that make us subject to Divine judgment, which at the time feels like it is to our detriment.

At the very end of this litany of catastrophe, the Torah returns to a more positive approach. Hashem informs us that no matter what befalls us – and no matter how far we stray – He will never abandon us nor abrogate the covenant He made with us (Vayikra 26:44). Rabbi Yaakov Abuchatzera, the Abir Yaakov, in his commentary Machsof HaLavan, examines this verse in light of an idea found in the Zohar that the Divine Presence in the world goes into exile with the people of Israel. Our wicked deeds and rebellion may cause us to be subject to terrible afflictions (G-d forbid), and by the laws of nature we should be utterly lost to the world – but this doesn’t happen. No matter what, no matter how horrible we behave, Hashem is also with us in our suffering in the form of His Shechinah.

But there’s another element to this relationship which validates Hashem’s faith in and love for us. Because even when we are in the darkest places and suffer terrible abuses that no other nation has ever endured, our concern first and foremost is for His Name and His Holy Shechinah, and that He should emerge from the darkness of exile that we precipitated. Hashem isn’t punishing us for defying Him; rather, through our defiance, we brought about the circumstances which led to a diminishment in both our stature and the perception of the Divine in the world. If we mourn this tragedy first and foremost – because we value the honor of Hashem over our own – Hashem will have compassion on us in our affliction and He will surely raise us up and redeem us in short order.