הודעהעל ידי ישבב הסופר » ג' מאי 27, 2014 10:36 pm
בשם וברשות ר' גבריאל וסרמן:
כָּף כַּפָּיוְ יִסְפּוֹק אֵ-ל בְּשַׂמַח אוֹם מֵאוּמוֹת
בְּנוֹחֲלָה שְֹלֹשׁ מֵאוֹת וַעֲשָׂרָה עוֹלָמוֹת
וְתַעֲנוֹג זִיז שָׂדַיְ וְלִוְיָתָן וּבְהֵמוֹת
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בדפוסים - א-ל יספוק
בכתי"י ך י - בנוחלם
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ביאור:
This stanza is based on the following passage from the Alphabet, on p. 374, at the beginning of the discussion of the letter kaf:
כף, זה כ"ף שכינה שהוא מכה זו על גבי זו בשמחה רבה בסעודתן של צדיקים לעולם שהבא ומרקד לפניהם בסעודה ועל אותה שעה אמר ישעיה יי רמה ידך וגו' [. . . . ]
Kaf—this is the palm [of the hand] of God, for He will clap one of them against the other, with great joy, at the Feast of the Righteous in the World to Come, and He will dance before them at the feast. Concerning that hour, Isaiah says: O LORD, Thy hand is raised high (Isaiah 26:11) [ . . . .]
This blatantly anthropomorphic depiction of God’s behavior is based on two passages in the Babylonian Talmud. The first is b. Berakhoth 59a: סופק כפיו, שנאמר: וגם אנה אכה כפי אל כפי — He claps his hands, as it is written: “And I will even clap one hand against the other” (Ezekiel 21:22). The second is b. Ta‘anith 31b: עתיד הקב"ה לעשות מחול לצדיקים — In the future, God is going to perform a dance in front of the righteous.
The idea that the righteous will inherit 310 universes appears in the Mishnā, ‘Uqẓīn 3:12: אמר רבי יהושע בן לוי, עתיד הקדוש ברוך הוא להנחיל לכל צדיק וצדיק שלוש מאות ועשרה עולמות, שנאמר: להנחיל אוהבי יש ואצרתיהם אמלא – R. Joshua ben Levi says: In the future, God is going to bequeath 310 universes to each and every righteous person, as it is written: “To bequeath something [yēsh] to those who love me, I shall fill their treasuries (Proverbs 8:21). The number 310 is based on the gemaṭriya (numerical value) of the word יש in the cited Biblical verse.
The Ziz, the Leviathan, and the Behemoth, enormous mythical animals which are to be served to the righteous in the World to Come, are not mentioned in the Alphabet’s long de¬scrip¬tion here of the feast of the World to Come. However, they are a common component of ma¬ny descriptions of the feast; the Leviathan and Behemoth appear as such already in Leviticus Rabbah 13:3 and Pesiḳta de-Rav Kahana §26, and the Ziz in Leviticus Rabbah 22:10.
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הערות שוליים :
Interestingly, the Alphabet quotes an idea very similar to the one in this mishna, not in the discussion of the letter kaf, but rather in the discussion of the letter yōd, in the context of the “eternal name” which God will give the righteous in the world to come:דבר אחר שם עולם, מלמד ששלש מאות וארבעים עולמים עתיד הקדוש ברוך הוא להנחיל לכל צדיק וצדיק לעולם הבא, שכך שם בגימטריא – Another interpretation: “An eternal name” means that God is going to bequeath 340 universes to each and every righteous person in the World to Come, for this is the gematriya of the word שם. Note that the number is different in the two sources. The use of the form עולמים to mean universes is peculiar; it is more common in Hebrew to use עולמות as the plural of the noun עולם universe, and עולמים as an abstract plural meaning forever.
The Leviathan and the Behemoth are already mentioned as enormous creatures in Job, chapter 40. The Ziz is mentioned as a bird in Psalms 50:11 and 80:14, albeit not as a giant mythological bird. (Not all commentators even understand the ziz of the Psalms to be a bird. See the commentaries on the page of Miḳraot Gedolot Ha-keter on Psalms 80:14. Targum Tehillim, and Ibn Ezra, and R. Isaiah di Trani all understand it to be a bird, but Rashi and Menaḥem Ha-meiri understand the word as referring to small crawling animals, and Ḳimḥi understands the peshāṭ of the word זִיז to be a term referrring to the beasts of the field in general. (Ḳimḥi also cites Leviticus Rabbah 22:10, that the Ziz is an enormous mythological bird, as a derāsh.)