ה רְאוּ בַגּוֹיִם וְהַבִּיטוּ, וְהִתַּמְּהוּ תְּמָהוּ: כִּי-פֹעַל פֹּעֵל בִּימֵיכֶם, לֹא תַאֲמִינוּ כִּי יְסֻפָּר. Look ye among the nations, and behold, and wonder marvellously; for, behold, A WORK SHALL BE WROUGHT IN YOUR DAYS , which ye will not believe though it be told you. And HaShem God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou [art] cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel (eikev). And again, And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. He had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on his horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, BUT THE FATAL HEAD WOUND WAS HEALED This conflict is described here in the Torah as man’s efforts to trample upon the serpent’s head and the serpent’s efforts to strike at man’s heel. Hakham Shimshone Rafael Hirsch points out that originally the serpent did not crawl upon its belly, that HaShem altered its form following this episode. As well, He altered its nature. Ever since his fall, the serpent envies the upright position of man which he once enjoyed. Aware that he can never regain that position because of the Divine curse upon him, the serpent tries to do the next best thing to bring man down to his level by INJECTING HIS VENOM INTO THIS GENERATION. HOW? The heel contains a part of the body that contains dead skin that is so insensitive that it can not feel anything of significance. On the other hand, that which is totally insignificant and trivial, tickling, that the foot can feel. This is an accurate description of our generation: We are totally insensitive to the spiritual reality. We are devoid of understanding or feeling, yet we are very much in tune with that which is totally superfluous, transient, and meaningless, that we can feel. In the overall stature of Israel’s history, our generation is the very “heel”, the lowest part of the body, while our predecessors are like brains, heart and other higher parts of the body.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Oct 2013 14:42:34 +0000
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