Moral Choices: How Actions Echo Through Heaven and Earth: From Judaism – The Talmud, Part 2 of 2

On account of the following four things, the eclipse of both the Sun and the Moon occurs: Those who write defamatory reports about others, giving false testimony, raising tender cattle, and destroying fruit-bearing trees.

On account of the following four things, the personal property of citizens is seized by the government: For keeping paid notes (with the intention to demand another payment), for the practice of usury, for not exercising one's power to prevent sin when he could do so, for subscribing publicly to charity and not paying the subscription.

On account of the following four things, the estates of the citizen are destroyed: For robbing or withholding the wages of a wage-earner [Leviticus 19:13]; for removing the yoke from one's own neck and placing it upon the neck of another, and for haughtiness above all.”

“Rabbi Dusthai bar Rabbi Jehudah said: Do provoke the wicked, as it is written [Proverbs 28:4]: “They that forsake the law praise the wicked, but such as observe the law contend with them”; but lest one say, is it not written [Psalm 37:1]: “Do not fret thyself because of the evil-doers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity” Say to him that this is the answer of him whose heart-beating prevents him from doing so (because of this passage), but the true interpretation of this passage is thus: “Do not fret thyself to be equal to the evil-doers, neither be thou envious to be like them of the workers of iniquity.”

There is no sitting above (in Heaven), neither is there eating, drinking, sleep, multiplication, animosity, hatred, provocation, envy, nor stubbornness, weariness nor delay, and that is what David the King of Israel said [Psalm 18:12]: “He made darkness his hiding-place” (i.e., it is dark and hidden to all mortals). To what end did David say this? To none other than to praise of the Holy One, blessed be He, who is “Yah,” (Jehovah) rules on high, whose unity is one, whose name is one, and who rests in three hundred and ninety Heavens, and on each His name and mode of pronunciation are marked; and in each of them there are servants, seraphim, ophanim (wheels, Ezekiel I.), cherubim, galgalim, and a throne of glory; and there is no wonder at that, for even as a mortal king has many palaces for the seasons of the year, so much the more the Everlasting, since all is His. And when Israel are doing His will, He rests in the seventh Heaven, named Araboth, and does not keep distant from His world, as it is written [Numbers 7:89]: “From between the two cherubim, and thus he spoke unto him.” When offended He ascends to the highest Heaven, and all cries and weeping are not listened to, and fasts are ordered, and they roll themselves in ashes, cover themselves with sacks, and shed tears (and all in vain, until He has mercy upon them).”