R. ELAZAR HAMODA`I--THE OPPOSITE OF R. DOSA

If R. Dosa b. Harqinas had focused excessively on this world, ending up being removed from this world, Maharal sees R. Elazar haModai as addressing the opposite problem, excessive focus on the World to Come. R. Elazar says that one who commits one of five sinful acts loses his share in the World to Come. The five are: 1)mehalel et haqodoshim, commits sacrilege towards sacrifices, 2)mevazeh et hamo`adot, acts with lack of respect towards the holidays (particularly Hol haMo`ed), 3) malbin penei havero ba-rabim, embarrasses someone else publicly, 4)megaleh panim ba-Torah she-lo ke-halakhah, mistreats Torah, and 5) mefer berito shel Avraham Avinu, which probably refers to surgically reversing one’s circumcision.

FIRST EXPLANATION

Each of these five, according to Maharal, is an area where the physical can be used in service of God. Sacrifices are the quintessential avodah, physical service of God. The holidays are times when people use their eating and drinking as ways of creating a festive spirit, one that promotes a closer relationship to God. Embarrassing others demonstrates the person’s assumption that they lack importance, another way of denigrating items of this world. The megaleh panim Maharal interprets as one who pokes fun at the physical mitsvot of the Torah. [This interpretation, we should note, is forced by his explanation of the whole Mishnah, not by the meaning of the phrase. That is, the term megaleh panim does not inherently refer to physical mitsvot (the gemara actually thinks it’s one who makes fun of excess or unimportant verses in the Torah). This is an example of where Maharal’s broader assumptions seem to have clearly shaped his interpretation of the specific words of the Mishnah.] Finally, berit milah is a clear physical manifestation of one’s service of God, so trying to reverse it denigrates the value of physical modes of worship of God.

Note that Maharal has generally not been so positive about the physical world in his commentary. His insistence here that we cannot ignore the potential of the physical world for providing opportunities for avodat Hashem provides at the very least a welcome counterbalance to what we have seen before. The point is that our awareness of the next world might lead to ignoring or devaluing this world’s avodat Hashem potential; as in the previous Mishnah—where focusing too greatly on this world caused loss of that world—focusing too greatly on the next world leads to losing it.

FURTHER SUPPORT

To emphasize the relevance of these five actions as central to the possible sanctity of this world, Maharal points out that each of them has a particular level of qedushah attached to it. Sacrifices, known as qodoshim, are obvious, but he reminds us of how the others tie into an extral level of sanctity: 1) holidays are referred to as miqraei qodesh, 2) circumcision is referred to as ot berit qodesh, 3) people are endowed with tselem Eloqim, the image of God, so that embarrassing a human impacts on the Divine presence in the world, 4) Torah is completely connected to the Separate Intellect (an idea we have seen before in Mahral), so that it is a this-worldly manifestation of the goal of human intellectual efforts.

This explanation also supports the notion that R. Elazar haModai was concerned with avoiding mistreatment of the physical world. By picking five parts of the physical universe that can be used for qedusha, for holy purposes, he was reminding us of the potential of this world. The importance of this Mishnah (for Maharal, and for our continuing attempt to see Avot through his eyes) is that it shows that whatever derogatory comments we may find about the physical are only meant to the extent that the physical ignores qedushah. Within a framework of holiness, however, Maharal sees enough value in this world that one who ignores it (to focus solely on the intellectual, possibly a shot at philosophically inclined thinkers) loses the World he thought he was gaining more quickly.

OR, PERHAPS IT INCLUDES MISTREATING THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE

Maharal also explains these five in a different way, based on the notion that the physical universe has three parts, the lower world, the world of the spheres (galgalim) and the upper (Divine) world. Within that scheme, humans are unique in that they combine the upper and lower realms. Thus, the sacrifices use animals, part of the lower realm, the holidays depend on the movement of the moon and stars, so they should be thought of as relating to the world of the spheres, and the Torah is completely of the upper realm. Man has both a berit milah, a physical aspect, but his tselem derives from the upper realm. In this view, then, R. Elazar was showing areas of our lives that attach to all the parts of the universe; mistreating them is akin to mistreating the universe as a whole.

ASCENDING ORDER?

Maharal also notes—as a deep matter to be thought about carefully—that R. Elazar listed these five in ascending order of importance. He does not explain, but that would seem to mean that the sacrifices train us in holiness at a lower level than the holidays, which in turn are not as lofty as an awareness of the value of our fellow human beings, which still stands below a berit, with Torah (of course) standing at the top. I find comments like those particularly interesting in societies where the holidays become, in too many cases, the central expressions of one’s commitment to Judaism. As Maharal said, we could discuss this in greater detail, but perhaps just noting the concept that these are in ascending order is useful enough.

THE PROBLEM FROM HELEQ

Maharal then questions this Mishnah based on the apparent contradiction between it and the first Mishnah in Heleq (the last pereq of Sanhedrin). The Mishnah here claims that one who transgresses in these ways loses his share in the World to Come. However, the first Mishnah in Heleq says that all Jews have a share in the World to Come, and these are those who do not have such a share, and then provides a different list than here. Since that list seems to be meant to be comprehensive, how can our Mishnah mention other ways in which a Jew can lose his or her intended share in the World to Come?

Before we review Maharal’s answers, I would just like to point out a weakness in the question. Maharal assumes that the list in Heleq is meant to be comprehensive, to include all those who lose their share in the World to Come. However, the gemara generally does not assume that Mishnaic lists are meant to be comprehensive (even when the list is introduced with the words "And these are the ones that…," even when that Mishnah also includes several exceptions). That means that Maharal could have just said that the Mishnah in Heleq was only offering a partial list; he then would have only had to explain why the two lists were separated into two Mishnayot.

HELEQ IS THE PARADIGM

Maharal offers two answers. The first notes that one of the ways the Mishnah in Sanhedrin says we can lose our share is denying that the Torah was min haShamayim, meaning that Moses received the Torah directly from God. Maharal then points out that each of the failings mentioned in our Mishnah incorporate a lack of faith in the divinity of the Torah—since one who mistreats sacrifices, denigrates the holidays, and so on cannot have full faith in God and the Torah.

The problem I have with that answer is that it can apply equally to almost any sin we would think of—sin inherently indicates a failure of faith. If Maharal were going to insist that any sin which embeds in it a lack of faith loses us our entire share in the World to Come, then the list here should have included all mitsvot, not just these.

HERESY VS. SERIOUS SIN

Maharal’s second answer offers a distinction between the two lists. Maharal suggests that the Mishnah in Heleq means that one who believes those heresies (no divinity of Torah, no physical resurrection of the dead, etc.) loses the share in the World to Come regardless of their other merits. Here, however, the Mishnah only means that these sins can tip a relatively balanced scale to the negative side (losing the share here, then, means only if the rest of one’s lifestyle has placed it in jeopardy). That would mean, then, that the Mishnah in Heleq was referring to actions or beliefs that can singlehandedly forfeit one’s share in the World to Come; here, the Mishnah was only discussing modes of behavior that are seriously negative, such that a close call would be tipped to the negative.