פרשת נצבים תשל"א - "פן יש בכם..."

and it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying: ‘I shall have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart—that the watered be swept away with the dry’;

והתברך בלבבו AND HE BLESS HIMSELF IN HIS HEART — The word והתברך has the meaning of “blessing”. In his heart he will imagine for himself a blessing of peace, saying, “These curses will not come upon me, I shall have peace”.

והתברך is benoir soi in old French, i.e. the verb is reflexive like והתגלח, “he shall shave himself”, והתפלל, he shall pray lit., he shall make himself the object of intercession.

and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast hearkened to My voice.’

and it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying: ‘I shall have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart—that the watered be swept away with the dry’;

בשררות לבי אלך means IN THE VIEWS OF MY HEART WILL I WALK, שררות being of a root which means to look, to see, as (Numbers 25:17): “I shall see him (אשרנו), but not now”; it is as much as to say, I will follow what my heart sees good to do.

and it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying: ‘I shall have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart—that the watered be swept away with the dry’;

that it be included [Hebrew: sefot] 1) Rabbi Y e hudah HaLevy — may he be for us a light from above! — said that this word has the meaning of “termination” (as in “will you destroy…” [Hebrew: tispeh] [Genesis 18: 23]). The man engaged in blessing himself intends to nullify the words of the righteous — here denoted by the word moist — by means of the words of the “thirsty” (the righteous man is called moist, along the lines of “like a tree planted by the water” [Jeremiah 17: 8], whereas a wicked man is called thirsty, along the lines of “like a juniper bush in the desert” [Jeremiah 17: 6]). Likewise, he thinks that by blessing himself, he can cancel out the malediction. All this would have been a fine explanation — were it not for the fact that moist is an adjective; the verse would have to read “…moisture with thirst”. 2) The grammarian Rabbi Yona ibn Janaḥ explained the verse to mean: Since he sees that the innocent are destroyed the same as the wicked, he decides in his heart to be wicked. This cannot be right, though, on account of the phrase all will be well with me. In my opinion, the word included [Hebrew: sefot] denotes an accretion, as in “that sin be added [Hebrew: sefot]” [Isaiah 30: 1]. The meaning is: “all will be well with me, even though I follow the evil impulses of my heart, because I will survive through the merit of the righteous; they are many, whereas I am just a single sinner”. For this reason, Scripture immediately says, God will not consent to pardon him — that is, he will be instantly destroyed. The image is of something wet adding moisture to something parched. Scripture compares the righteous man to land that is watered (as in, “like a tree planted by streams of water” [Psalms 1: 3]) and the wicked man to land that is parched (as in “like a juniper bush in the desert” [Jeremiah 17: 6]). Evidence for this interpretation is provided by the beginning of the passage: “a root developing into hemlock and worm-wood” [: 17] — which only occurs in a dry area.

למען ספות הרוה, the deliberate sinner, whose motivation is that seeing he is so well off, he does not worry about possible consequences for himself

הצמאה, because of the urgings of his desire. He does not sin in order to make a statement against G’d asserting his freedom to do as he pleases and thereby rejecting G’d as the world’s Master. He is merely unable to resist his urges.

and it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying: ‘I shall have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart—that the watered be swept away with the dry’;