פרשת נח תשכ"ו - הפטרה

Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye for water, And he that hath no money; Come ye, buy, and eat; Yea, come, buy wine and milk Without money and without price.

הוי Ho ! It is the sign of the vocative. Ho, every one that thirsteth, etc. With these words the Lord will address those who will then be desirous to accept the Law.

Buy and eat the wisdom. Comp.¹As to the verb to eat being used in a figurative sense, signifying to learn, to perceive. Eat this roll, (Ez. 3:1). Wisdom is demanded by the soul as the food is demanded by the body.

Buy for nothing, And eat without paying. Wine and milk. Each serves both for food and drink, as medical authorities assert.²The function of the drink is to dissolve the food and to accelerate its digestion; most beverages, according to I. E., are believed to contain no elements of nourishment, but in wine and milk both properties are found, they nourish and accelerate the digestion. Wine and milk are mentioned because the Law is compared with them.³Comp. Midrash Yalkut ad locum, and I. E. on Solomon’s Song 2:4.—No other passage of the Bible, however, can be adduced, in which the Law is compared with wine and milk.

And he that hath no money to buy, that is, that has not the means required for study.

Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye for water, And he that hath no money; Come ye, buy, and eat; Yea, come, buy wine and milk Without money and without price.

Incline your ear, and come unto Me; Hear, and your soul shall live; And I will make an everlasting covenant with you, Even the sure mercies of David.

ולכו אלי And come unto me. Lit., Go away from your place toward me; comp. סורה אלי turn in to me (Jud. 4:18).⁶הלך to go signifies removal from the place of him that speaks, בוא to come, approach to it. The preposition אלי demands the verb ובואו, while the verb ולכו demands ממני; I. E. therefore explains the words ולכו אלי as an elliptical phrase, meaning, and go from your place and come unto me. Comp. I. E. on 31:1, Note 2.

בשר בנפשו FLESH WITH THE SOUL THEREOF [SHALL YE NOT EAT] — He here prohibited to them אבר מן החי the eating of a limb cut from a living animal, that is to say that בשר בנפשו (literally, flesh together with its life) means so long as its life is in it you shall not eat the flesh.

בשר בנפשו FLESH WITH THE SOUL THEREOF [SHALL YE NOT EAT] — He here prohibited to them אבר מן החי the eating of a limb cut from a living animal, that is to say that בשר בנפשו (literally, flesh together with its life) means so long as its life is in it you shall not eat the flesh.

בנפשו דמו (literally, its blood together with its life) means whilst its (the animal’s) life is still in it (the blood).

Consequently בשר בנפשו לא תאכלו FLESH SO LONG AS THERE IS LIFE IN IT SHALL YE NOT EAT forms the prohibition of אבר מן החי the eating of a limb cut from a living animal. And connecting בנפשו with דמו we obtain the reading also בנפשו דמו לא תאכלו ITS BLOOD TOGETHER WITH ITS LIFE SHALL YE NOT EAT which forms the prohibition of partaking of blood of a living animal (Sanhedrin 59a)