EHS Chaburah: Sefer Daniyel Erev Tu B'Shvat 5780 | 2/8/20 Perek Daled #1 - Dreaming of Trees

In the eleventh year, on the first day of the third month, the word of the LORD came to me: O mortal, say to Pharaoh king of Egypt and his hordes: Who was comparable to you in greatness? Assyria was a cedar in Lebanon With beautiful branches and shady thickets, Of lofty stature, With its top among leafy trees. Waters nourished it, The deep made it grow tall, Washing with its streams The place where it was planted, Making its channels well up To all the trees of the field. Therefore it exceeded in stature All the trees of the field; Its branches multiplied and its boughs grew long Because of the abundant water That welled up for it. In its branches nested All the birds of the sky; All the beasts of the field Bore their young under its boughs, And in its shadow lived All the great nations. It was beautiful in its height, In the length of its branches, Because its stock stood By abundant waters. Cedars in the garden of God Could not compare with it; Cypresses could not match its boughs, And plane trees could not vie with its branches; No tree in the garden of God Was its peer in beauty. I made it beautiful In the profusion of its branches; And all the trees of Eden envied it In the garden of God.

Assuredly, thus said the Lord GOD: Because it towered high in stature, and thrust its top up among the leafy trees, and it was arrogant in its height, I delivered it into the hands of the mightiest of nations. They treated it as befitted its wickedness. I banished it. Strangers, the most ruthless of nations, cut it down and abandoned it; its branches fell on the mountains and in every valley; its boughs were splintered in every watercourse of the earth; and all the peoples of the earth departed from its shade and abandoned it. Upon its fallen trunk all the birds of the sky nest, and all the beasts of the field lodge among its boughs— so that no trees by water should exalt themselves in stature or set their tops among the leafy trees, and that no well-watered tree may reach up to them in height. For they are all consigned to death, to the lowest part of the netherworld, together with human beings who descend into the Pit. Thus said the Lord GOD: On the day it went down to Sheol, I closed the deep over it and covered it; I held back its streams, and the great waters were checked. I made Lebanon mourn deeply for it, and all the trees of the field languished on its account. I made nations quake at the crash of its fall, when I cast it down to Sheol with those who descend into the Pit; and all the trees of Eden, the choicest and best of Lebanon, all that were well watered, were consoled in the lowest part of the netherworld. They also descended with it into Sheol, to those slain by the sword, together with its supporters, they who had lived under its shadow among the nations. [Now you know] who is comparable to you in glory and greatness among the trees of Eden. And you too shall be brought down with the trees of Eden to the lowest part of the netherworld; you shall lie among the uncircumcised and those slain by the sword. Such shall be [the fate of] Pharaoh and all his hordes—declares the Lord GOD.

Delivered it into the hands of the mightiest of nations , treating it in accordance with their wickedness- like the nation of Nebuchadnezzar, as Mar says, who in his 1st year captured Ninveh

I granted greatness to Abraham, yet he said before Me: “And I am but dust and ashes” (Genesis 18:27). I granted greatness to Moses and Aaron, yet Moses said of the two of them: “And what are we” (Exodus 16:7). I granted greatness to David, yet he said: “But I am a worm, and no man” (Psalms 22:7).

But the gentile nations of the world are not so. I granted greatness to Nimrod, yet he said: “Come, let us build a city and a tower, with its top in heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name” (Genesis 11:4). I granted greatness to Pharaoh, yet he said: “Who is the Lord” (Exodus 5:2). I granted greatness to Sennacherib, yet he said: “Who are they among all the gods of the countries that have delivered their country out of my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand” (II Kings 18:35). I granted greatness to Nebuchadnezzar, yet he said: “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds” (Isaiah 14:14). I granted greatness to Ḥiram, king of Tyre, yet he said: “I sit in the seat of God, in the heart of the seas” (Ezekiel 28:2).

Beware lest your heart grow haughty and you forget the LORD your God—who freed you from the land of Egypt, the house of bondage;

. ורם לבבך ושכחת את ה' אלו-היך, “and your heart will be arrogant and you will forget the Lord your G’d;” pride is the principal cause of forgetting essentials. Due to the abundance of affluence, peace, tranquillity, etc., a person’s heart becomes haughty, smug, and his evil urge finds it easy to provoke him to follow the dictates of his heart without restraint. When that happens, heaven’s concerns become marginal for him.

When in your war against a city you have to besiege it a long time in order to capture it, you must not destroy its trees, wielding the ax against them. You may eat of them, but you must not cut them down. Are trees of the field human to withdraw before you into the besieged city?