Bereshit Rabbah 39, Part 6: Goy Gadol

Let us now look at the attributes and virtues of this Promised Land, which go back to creation itself. For when Rashi comments on creation at the word Bereshit, he grafts onto it the idea that the account — the narrative — of creation has no other aim than the Land of Israel, the land reserved, let us say, for this people alone, so that there may be no contesting it by the other nations, so that they may not accuse the Jewish people of robbery and of having despoiled the inhabitants of their land. For G-d is the Master of creation: He takes a country, a territory, from one people and destines it for another, according to His will — and His will is to set the Land of Israel apart for the people of Israel. And it is interesting that the Land of Israel exists before the people of Israel and before the Torah of Israel. Has anyone ever seen a land that exists before its people and before its constitution? Yet in the order of things, if we look at the biblical account, the land comes first. As we have already had occasion to point out, Avraham was rishon ha-ma’aminim, the first of believers; but his belief was not in a monotheistic deity — it was in a G-d who unites at once heaven and earth, spirit and matter — ve-he’emin ba-Hashem, “and he believed in Hashem” — a G-d who allows this world of creation not to remain closed in on itself but to open, from time to time, to the demands of morality. That is the work of what we translate as “miracle.” For in the conception of creation, if it obeyed only the laws of causality, creation would be lost; it would grow old. But He renews the world every day.

So the particularity of the Land of Israel is to bring forth a people. Different lands have different virtues — with regard to what can be planted, to every form of working the soil. The Land of Israel, beyond all the particularities other lands may have, has as its purpose ve-e’eskha le-goy gadol, “I will make of you a great nation.” Avraham is the first to found the Jewish nation. The embryo of the Jewish nation is settled on its land before this Jewish people is even born. And before this Jewish people is born, the land is filtered of every foreign occupant. Indeed, if one analyzes this first parashah alone, Lech Lecha, there are four promises concerning the Land of Israel, yet no allusion at all to a spirituality, a religion or any form of worship proper to this Land of Israel. That will become clearer later on. It is, if you like, inherent, because in Israel we cannot conceive of the Land of Israel without the Torah of Israel. There is a passage in Yeshayahu saying that the Holy One, blessed be He, gives a soul to the land and to the people who dwell on it. In other words, just as man has a soul, so too does the land. That is why it is accepted that there is a Torah that is the Torah of Eretz Yisrael: there is no Torah like the Torah studied in Eretz Yisrael, and all Torah studied outside Eretz Yisrael remains somewhat deficient — we will explain this later — because it is not on its natural soil. The people of Israel in exile can never constitute a nation; it is a mosaic of communities throughout the world. […] (A voice from the audience: “What’s happening? Rav Benizri, we can’t hear you anymore. Rav Benizri, Rav Benizri, we can’t hear you anymore… Ah, there — now I can hear you.” “Is he back?” “He’s back, he’s back.”)

We had stopped at this idea of goy. “Who is like Your people Israel, one nation (goy echad) in the land”: the Jewish people is a goy. The Midrash reads the command to Avraham as going to the land of seeing, of vision — the land where, like a father who looks at his children, who watches over his children, who wants to see them at home and not outside the home, so G-d asks: the land where I will keep My eye on you. Then, says the Midrash, comes ve-e’eskha le-goy gadol, “I will make of you a great nation.” And here Avraham spoke up. We have already emphasized the fact that a dialogue is established between G-d and Avraham; it is the first time in the Bible that such a dialogue takes place.

Until then, man had remained passive. Avraham says to Him: “From Noach You have already raised up seventy nations.” And He answers him: “That nation of which it is written, ‘For who is a great nation…’ — that is the one I will make of you.” That is, Avraham said: what is a nation that You will make of me worth, compared with the seventy nations You have already brought forth? And He says to him: you are a goy gadol, you are a great people. It is not written “I will give you as a great people”; it says “I will make of you a great people.” At first glance, we understand it this way: I will make of you a new creature; you no longer have any ties, as it were, with the rest of humanity.

But no: “I will make of you” a new creation that will be fruitful and multiply. Understand — every nation multiplies — but this one will multiply without end, will perpetuate itself. I will spare you the whole series of masters who have commented on this statement: three greatnesses — I would say three praises — and four blessings are mentioned here. He announced to him the good news that there would be three fathers, the patriarchs, and four matriarchs, for this is the form the blessing takes, as we will see. So this refers to the three patriarchs and four matriarchs, which we bind around our arm with the tefillin every morning. And Rabbi Chiya said:

Rabbi Chiya says […] that these things had to come, since the road brings about three things. It diminishes procreation; it diminishes money — it increases expenses so that one can no longer meet one’s outlays; and it diminishes one’s name — it reduces a person’s standing. Yes, we sum this up in the saying “a rolling stone gathers no moss,” but here we will see that it is more than that. “And I will make your name great.” For people say: moving from house to house, you lose at least a garment; but moving from one town to another, you can lose your soul.

But you — you will lack neither soul nor possessions. […] Rabbi Berekhiah, in the name of Rabbi Chelbo, says: four went forth with a coin struck in their name in the world. Rabbi Berekhiah in the name of Rabbi Chelbo says, because […] — I would say: to publish one’s name throughout the world, one’s emblem throughout the world. Only four people imposed their emblem on the whole universe. Avraham, of whom it is said, “I will make of you a great nation”: a coin went forth for him, he had an emblem. What was his emblem? An old man and an old woman on this side — he had a medallion with an old man and an old woman on one face — and on the reverse, a young man and a young woman on that side.

And Yehoshua too was granted a coin: “And the Eternal was with Yehoshua, and his fame spread throughout the land,” through the whole world; he had his coin in the world. What was it? An ox on one side, and on the other a re’em — a kind of stag, with horns like a gazelle’s […] — in reference to “the firstborn of his ox, majesty is his”: the firstborn of his ox is Yosef, who was called shor, an ox, and Yehoshua was a descendant of Yosef. In parenthesis: we have here the four people who were granted a coin in the world. They are the four who either accomplished the conquest of the land, like Yehoshua and like David, or brought about a return from exile to the Land of Israel, like Mordechai.

These are the four people. So here, Yehoshua had as his coin an ox and the horns of a re’em. David — “and David’s name went forth in all the lands” — his name spread through all the countries […]. And what was his emblem? What was his coin? A shepherd’s staff and bag on this side, and on the other face a tower on that side — a tower on the other side, in reference to “Your neck is like the Tower of David.” Mordechai is the one who brought about the return to the Land of Israel and the rebuilding of the Second Temple, and who was part of the Great Assembly: “For Mordechai was great in the king’s house,” for Mordechai was great in the king’s house, “and his fame went through all the provinces.”

He too had a coin struck, a piece of currency — his coin. And what was his emblem? Sackcloth and ashes on one side, and a crown of gold on the other. Let me pause here for a moment and define a few terms. First, that of goy. We are a goy gadol, and this was repeated to us at the foot of Mount Sinai: “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (goy kadosh).” Now we know that the morning blessing is shelo asani goy for men — shelo asani goyah in the feminine. And we have, as it were, reduced the notion of goyim to a somewhat derisive sense: that all the peoples, all the goyim, are as nothing before You.

So we do not want to be a goy — and yet we are a goy. There is a fascinating idea that Rav Kook develops: in their essence, all neshamot (souls) are Israel. That is, at the origin, when G-d created Adam in His image and likeness, it was truly the archetypal portrait of all humanity. But as this image of Adam descends to what we are in reality, there is a loss of substance, so that we are no longer that original Israel but gradually become goy. And this holds for everything. Even thought: the moment I try to make it precise, I cut it off from a certain possibility, a certain dimension, because I cannot express it completely — and when I try to make it concrete, it becomes weaker still. The same is true of being: when it does not flourish, it only loses its substance; it becomes goy, much closer to geviyah, the mere body. Now, in all creation — just as a person, from birth to the age of twenty, establishes his neshamah and develops it further and further —

— there is an evolution that takes place step by step and that gives being the reality of Israel. And this reality of Israel, when it is fully integrated, becomes part of ourselves; it is genetically present in our existence, and it is passed on. But that does not prevent Israel from being in permanent becoming, so that it is not reduced to the state of [a goy]. That is why there are the morning blessings — shelo, shelo asani goy. Now the verb asah, “to make,” does not denote — and the text makes this clear here — a ready-made reality. For goy gadol was also given to Yishmael: “I will make him a great nation” — or rather, “I will set him as a great nation,” I will place Yishmael as a great people. But that is not asiyah, not “making.” To make is to create, to maintain a state of permanent creation, so that Israel never simply is: it becomes Israel day after day. And that is how it exists beyond all the crises it may go through, the nefesh it may lose. No — it has this ability to possess the wisdom of old age while keeping the youthfulness of the young man and the young woman, and the capacity to procreate.

And that is the gedulah, the greatness in question here: it is related even to the praise we offer G-d — “Great is Hashem and exceedingly praised.” And this gedulah is of another order, because it is the product of a land that has a neshamah. That is the particularity of the Land of Israel, and that is why the people of Israel can fully flourish only in the Land of Israel. Please do not take this as a Zionist speech. It is not; it is the Torah, it is the Midrash, which we are in the process of expounding. It is a fact — a fact that this is the land where Jewish identity from all over the world is fused together. And David will make this clearer — and also because Yehoshua carried out the conquest, and this conquest is attributed to the descendants of Yosef.

Now you know that Yosef is the link between the patriarchs and the people of Israel. He has something of the status of a patriarch and something of a tribal head — but a tribal head with two tribes, who gave rise to two tribes within the people of Israel — and who, through his coffin, opened the way for the crossing of the Red Sea, so that the people could set out on the road back to the Promised Land. So his emblem was shor, the ox. Now shor has another meaning: shor means to look — a sharpness of vision that indeed allowed him to grasp a great many things through his dreams and through what he accomplished in Egypt; all of this to prepare the future constitution of the people of Israel in the Land of Israel.

For the exile of the people from the Land of Israel was only a way of filtering the elements of the Jewish people once more, of every husk that might, in the end, have clouded the constitution of the being of Israel. This is indeed what Avraham did as well, in these four promises of the land, repeated each time. The first time, it is to wrest the land from the grip of one’s birthplace, of the family. Then to wrest it from Lot, who follows Avraham in the footsteps of G-d’s promise but who wears a mask. In reality he imitates Avraham; he is not quite Avraham […] — unfortunately, there are many imitators on this path. The third thing that endangered the possession of the Promised Land was the disciples who claimed Avraham’s teaching as their own: Aner, Eshkol, Mamre, Eliezer. And the fourth, the most dangerous, was Yishmael, who to this day never stops claiming his share of Eretz Yisrael — and he too had to be set aside. Indeed, each repetition of the promise carries a small nuance aimed at a particular danger to be averted. This land had to be exclusively the inheritance of Yitzchak, and that is why Yitzchak never leaves Israel at all.

He is on his guard; he takes possession of the land. “And Yitzchak sowed in that land” — he sows the land, and he opens wells, he digs wells, those of Avraham, up to the well of Rechovot. So that is the shor: the coin bore this shor, this ox, on one side, since Yosef was likened to the ox with its own way of seeing — a keen vision of things, and a sense of beauty too: “daughters stepped out upon the wall” — the young women who, as Yosef’s procession passed by, admired his beauty. It was not only the woman of that story. Next, David. So this notion of beauty […]. As you see, it is David […] — I need not dwell on this, since David is the one who brought Avraham’s journey to its close.

Avraham began by laying the foundations for possessing the Promised Land and creating a national home — that is the essential point. Paradoxically, the Torah does not speak of this whole “religious quest” of Avraham […]. We find one mention, namely that he will teach his children to practice justice and charity. But apart from that — and apart from the milah, which was commanded by Hashem — nothing emerges from Avraham’s journey other than ownership of the land and the creation of a Jewish nation. And there is, moreover, a shared term between Avraham and David: Magen Avraham and Magen David. They are the only two who bear this title of shield, through which the protection of the Eternal is recognized — divine providence, which led Avraham on the road to the Promised Land and which brought David to close Avraham’s journey through the conquest of the Promised Land.

Now what is it? Makel ve-tarmil — he has a shepherd’s staff, he has a bag. This shepherd’s vocation has often been underlined among the patriarchs, but also with Moshe, who became the first leader of the Jewish people at its formation; he had a mateh, while David had a makel. What is the difference between the mateh and the makel? The mateh is still pliant, isn’t it? One can still bend it, move it, curve it one way or the other. The makel is hard. “For with my staff (be-makli) I crossed this Jordan,” says Yaakov. A staff — because that staff is the one that shows me the road, the road from which I must never deviate at any moment, which I must not play with.

No, no — it is the makel: a bag on this side, and a tower on that side. Why? Because they say migdal, the tower. Which tower? The high tower — the high tower is that of Jerusalem, that of the Temple, the Temple beside which the Sanhedrin sits. Why? Because the state of Israel, the Land of Israel, is a Jewish state. There is no separation of religion and state. The Sanhedrin was beside the Temple because this state had at all costs to breathe the Torah of Israel, to be able to preserve its structures. There is no “what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to G-d.” That separation does not exist, because in that case the state would have no justification at all — the country would have no justification at all. Now we began with this order — which Rav Kook did not formulate in these terms — but the order is Eretz Yisrael, Am Yisrael, Torat Yisrael, and this trilogy is inseparable. We cannot break it apart or divide it. But of course this is realized over a very long span of time. One must not dream: it will not happen overnight. Moreover, the aim is not to make a country of Jews but a Jewish country. And in the very constitution of the state today there is an important chapter […]: the observance of Shabbat as the official day of rest; kashrut for the meals served in all state cafeterias; chinukh, the possibility of a Jewish education within the country. There is also a fourth dimension: the Jewish character of marriage, in the hands of the rabbinate. Of course, everything is shifting. And once again, just as in the development of any young person growing up there are moments of questioning, rebellion and protest, so too in the development of a country’s structure. And we hope that one day we may indeed see this Jewish heritage embraced, as it were — if only at least in spirit — by all the inhabitants of the country. Otherwise we will begin to live as separate communities within the country, which would be a catastrophe. And I have repeated: “Who is like Your people Israel, one nation in the land” — one united people in this land, because it is this land that brings about our unity.

And so there are indeed exiles, there are flights. And “Mordechai [was great] in the king’s house”: that is the return to Israel, because there is a threat of antisemitism elsewhere and a desire to fall back on a country that remains the object of our aspirations and our dreams. When sackcloth and ashes threaten the existence of the Jewish people, then the crown of gold must be regained — the crown of gold must be regained, this kingship must be regained in Israel. “And a crown of gold on that side”: that is the kingship of the house of David, the King Mashiach. Rabbi Yudan said — let me continue. Rabbi Yudan says: the Holy One, blessed be He, sets a blessing for him in the Shemoneh Esreh. The Holy One, blessed be He, tells him, among other things: not only do I make of you a great nation —

— and we have defined what the great nation is — but I establish a blessing in your name in the Shemoneh Esreh, in the tefillah, in the Amidah. “But I do not know whether Yours comes first or mine.” Of course, in this Amidah, as you know, before making one’s personal requests — there are seventeen, eighteen, nineteen blessings, depending on how it developed — the first three blessings are reserved for the Avot, the fathers. Avraham’s is the first blessing, and in this blessing there is a form of genuflection. There is the second, in which there is no genuflection: that is Yitzchak’s. And the third is Yaakov’s. The notion of holiness appears only with Yaakov. Why? Because Yaakov’s “bed was complete” (mitato shelemah).

Yaakov has an entire family that forms the nucleus of the Jewish people, whereas Avraham and Yitzchak have on the one side Yishmael and on the other Esav. Now we have already said that the coming into being of Esav is a way of shedding Rivkah’s antecedents, those of Charan; and this distancing of Yishmael is also a way of distancing, of putting an end to, Yishmael’s desire to seize Avraham’s inheritance. But that lies in what is at its origin Egyptian, at the origin of tum’ah, of impurity. Nevertheless, Yishmael and Esav are an integral part of ourselves, since at the foot of Mount Sinai we will indeed affirm our adherence to the Torah with na’aseh ve-nishma — the na’aseh of Esav and the nishma of Yishmael: “we will do and we will hear.” And this brings us back to the parashah of the week, namely: the voice I hear — Yishma — the voice heard is that of Yaakov, but the hands that carry things out are those of Esav. So when Yitzchak makes sure of Yaakov, the man before him bears the elements of Esav and of Yishmael — “The voice is the voice of Yaakov, but the hands are the hands of Esav” — and he gives him the blessing.

Now he gives him the blessing: “May G-d give you of the dew of heaven and of the fat of the earth.” I say this in parenthesis. But what is important is that when Avraham says, “I do not know which blessing comes first — is it Yours or mine?”, G-d answers — through the voice of Rabbi Acha in the name of Rabbi Ze’ira — “Yours comes before Mine.” Yours is Magen Avraham; Mine is mechayeh ha-metim, the One who revives the dead. That one is Mine, Mine. It is Yitzchak’s blessing: it is the Holy One, blessed be He, who intervenes and gives him back life […]. And so He tells him that his comes first.

Why? Because it is you who came forward to meet Me. Because it is you who proclaim My name everywhere. Without you, I would not exist in people’s consciousness. It is an important idea: the blessing of Avraham, who goes out ahead toward the discovery of G-d, comes before the blessing reserved for G-d. And the text makes it explicit: first one says Magen Avraham, and only afterwards mechayeh ha-metim. […] I think I will stop here. I thought we would get much further, but time is short. If you have questions, with pleasure. So, turn on your microphones for questions. (A participant: “Rav Benizri, I have two small questions which, I think, are probably not…” — “Just speak up a little, please.”)

“Here is my first little question, about Mordechai. I did not know he had made aliyah, and I am glad to hear it today, but could you tell us a little about where this is written? And then I also understand what you said about goy gadol. I have always wondered: what does goy gadol mean — in quantity or in quality? And hearing you today, I have the feeling that goy gadol is the whole body of believers in one G-d, with, of course, the permanence of the Jewish people in Israel.” Yes — so goy gadol is the nation worthy of praise. The nation worthy of praise, because it does not suffer from being reduced to, or from being present among, all the other goyim, all the other peoples.

But there is a particularity: “For who is a great nation that has G-d so close to it” — which is the great nation that lives in closeness to G-d — or “who is a great nation that has righteous statutes and judgments” — which is this great people that possesses laws and precepts conforming to justice and charity. So it is a recognition: it is gadol just as G-d is recognized by the other peoples; the Jewish people is recognized, is called to be recognized, even if it is not yet. In any case it has been, to a large extent — and that is what makes it remain the object of so much jealousy. In the end, antisemitism is founded above all on the wish to topple this people, this goy gadol, this great one among the nations — on the wish to confuse it with the other goyim.

Yet it stands above every nation, and it is different. It is gadol, and this gadol refers to its essence: Israel. There, I think I have answered your question. Briefly, another question. “I have two small questions. The first: you said that Torah outside Israel is not a complete Torah. You have the Talmud Bavli […], and you have Rashi — correct me if I’m wrong — who was in France. That is a Torah of foreign lands.” Yes, I know. Yes, yes, but I am speaking to you of Torah in its essence, not of the currents of Torah. The currents of Torah are entirely valid; of course there has been development. The whole Talmud was the product of exile, of Babylon — of the Oral Torah, isn’t it?

But the spirituality of the Torah, so to speak, the lived experience of the Torah, has its profound resonance in Eretz Yisrael. And you know that our Sages did not mince their words, saying that whoever sets his dwelling outside the Land — saying, “I can be a Jew and fully build my future here” — is “like one who has no G-d.” The Torah of chutz la-aretz remains tinged by its cultural surroundings, whether one likes it or not. And that is why our Sages said that the spiritual resonance of the Torah in Israel is far, far greater. Now I did not explain this idea: “Your neck is like the Tower of David.” Careful — tzavar is the neck. And the city, the tower, which is Jerusalem, is the Tower of David; but the head rests on the neck, and through the neck passes nourishment for the whole rest of the body, and through it too passes all the nourishment of the mind, which is enthroned above the body, and all the possible orientations of the being.

Now what David said about Yerushalayim, which remains the focal point of the people of Israel and of the nations, is that above this tower hovers the presence of G-d. It is the makom, the place — “which G-d desired for His dwelling” — the place G-d chose for His residence. So one is much closer to the emanation of this divine flow in Israel than outside Israel. (A participant: “Is that a way of inviting everyone to make aliyah?” — “Pardon?”) Well, I did not say things… indeed, careful: everyone is in the process of aliyah, everyone. Even someone who has not made it is on the way to making it, because at no moment have we broken the bond […] with Israel, even while living outside the Land.

You see it: even “next year in Jerusalem” is the hidden wish of every Jew — the one taught and read at the exodus from Egypt, at the end of the exile, the first exile. The Pesach seder closes with “next year in Jerusalem.” (“I still have one very small question, if you have another minute — it is about Esav.” — “A little louder.” — “Sorry, excuse me. About Esav.” — “Yes.”) “What I don’t quite understand is that on the one hand you have Esav who, in quotation marks, had a role to play, and even Leah — he still had a wife to marry […]. And on the other hand there is the number seven — I am not speaking of it directly — as though everything had been settled from the start, in quotation marks, for seven to be the determining number, and everything in the story is regulated by the fact that Esav turns out badly.

“That is, one has the impression that everything is set up for Esav to turn out badly.” Yes. “Even Leah was meant for Esav, but we know very well that she will not go to Esav.” Wait. […] You see, know that Esav is pragmatic; he wants to […]. […] Yitzchak loves him, and you know why? Because — no — you cannot withdraw into a yeshiva and do nothing; how will you fulfil yourself? You have to enter the world of action, olam ha-zeh, whereas there is Yaakov […], who seeks to secure his olam ha-ba, the world to come, the world to come […] in relation to this olam ha-zeh.

Now Yitzchak wants to draw Esav close, because he wants to found Israel from two people — an alliance of the chiloni and the dati, the secular and the religious, of Esav and the bachur yeshivah. Rivkah does not agree. She says: no, I will make Yaakov wear Esav’s clothes. He must learn; he will go into exile; he will realize that one must work relentlessly to fulfil oneself — and that will happen with Lavan. But Yitzchak is reassured when he senses the clothes: “And he smelled the scent of his garments.” He smells the scent of these garments, and he says: “See, the scent of my son is like the scent of a field” — like the scent of Gan Eden […] — “which Hashem has blessed.” Blessed by G-d: that is what he wants, and that is why he gives him this blessing and reserves for him the blessing of Avraham.

Later we will have the occasion to […] what I said at the table this Shabbat — to my children; no, not to my children, they are not there around my table, I regret to say; the coronavirus has limited us, and seriously — let us say it was my grandson who was there. And I said to him: our Sages imagined that when Rivkah passed in front of a place of foreign worship, it was Esav who stirred and wanted to come out, and when she passed in front of a synagogue or a house of study, it was Yaakov who stirred and wanted to come out. I said to him: but how did she guess? Where was Esav, where was Yaakov, in her womb? We do not yet know who is Esav and who is Yaakov. No — in reality this will be revealed later. For when Esav comes before Yaakov, he says to him: give me to eat of this red, this red stew you have prepared, this dish of lentils […] — “this red, red stuff” (ha-adom ha-zeh); what counts is this, olam ha-zeh: “for I am weary (ayef anokhi).” I am weary of the pursuit of the Anokhi — even this verticality, the upright man stretching his hands toward G-d, exasperates me greatly, I cannot bear it — “for I am going to die,” I am going to die. And so, what for? What good does it do me? I understand nothing of it at all. And so, what does it say here?

“I am weary” — ayef — of the Anokhi. And what does Rivkah say when she feels something stirring and she is in pain? She says, “Why then am I (lamah zeh anokhi)?” — what am I carrying within me? I carry both the Anokhi and the olam ha-zeh, this world […]. She goes to ask G-d, she goes to ask Hashem, what the secret of this is. And it becomes clear later that there are indeed two tendencies: one turned toward fulfilment in this world, and the other toward fulfilment in the world to come. Yes — and that is why Yitzchak will try to clothe Yaakov in olam ha-zeh, in olam ha-zeh, and to make Yaakov’s hands the hands of Esav, while not losing the tone of Yaakov’s voice: “The voice is the voice of Yaakov.”

There. Well, I bid you farewell — see you soon. (“Thank you very much, see you next week.” “Thank you very much.” “Have a good week.” “Thank you very much.” “Goodbye.” “Goodbye.” “Goodbye.” “Bye, Manu.” “Thank you. I followed from halfway through the lecture, and I’ll connect to the Facebook Live for the first part.” “Here we go.” “Yes, all right.” “Come on.” “Take care.” “Bye, everyone.” “Shavua tov to you, to everyone.” “Goodbye.” “Goodbye, Luc, thank you very much.” “Goodbye, thank you.”)