The Ladder: Lifting Another Without Letting Go

1“And stay with him a few days, until your brother's fury turns away, until your brother's anger turns away from you, and he forgets what you did to him.”¹ I heard in the name of the famous tzaddik R' Zusman of Anipoli² that whenever he wanted to bring someone back to the right path, he would throw himself into fasting, intense deveikus, cleaving to Hashem, and great self-affliction, until he drew that person along with him to teshuvah.

2Now when a tzaddik sets out to lift someone up, one of two things happens: either he raises him, or he leaves him lower than he was before. Picture two people climbing a ladder. The first has reached the top; the second is climbing behind him, lower down. The one at the top wants to pull the second up to him. If the one below lets himself be lifted, the one above can bring him up beside him. But if he makes himself heavy and will not let himself be lifted, then when the one above lets go, he falls backward to the ground with great force and ends up lower than where he began.

3(The compiler adds: In my opinion this is hinted at in a saying of our Sages,³ which Rashi brings in Parshas Chayei Sarah on the verse “Perhaps the woman will not follow me …”: “The cursed does not cleave to the blessed.” Since such a person does not truly cleave to the one who is blessed, then even though he set out to be drawn along, in the end he falls lower than he was at first. Look into it.)

4This is why Rivkah told Yaakov to cleave to Hashem, blessed be He: so that he would draw Esav along with him, and Esav would return in teshuvah. And if Yaakov could not draw him along, Esav would fall even lower, until Yaakov's name would never again enter his mind, sunk as he would be in the depths of impurity, as we explained.⁴ This is the meaning of “until your brother's fury turns away” and “your brother's anger turns away from you.” Either way, your brother's anger will turn away from you, precisely “from you.” Whether you lift him up, or you bring him down so low that he is as far from you as east is from west,⁵ he will never again think of what you did to him. Consider this carefully. That is “and he forgets what you did to him.” (These are the words of the sefer Mevaser Tzedek on Parshas Toldos, except that it does not spell out the parable at such length. See there.)

5The compiler's note 11. In Maseches Gittin,⁶ Mar Ukva sent a question to R' Elazar: “There are people who rise up against me, and it is in my power to hand them over to the government. What should I do? … They are causing me great distress, and I cannot stand up to them.” R' Elazar sent back: “‘Be silent before Hashem, and wait longingly for Him’⁷: be silent before Hashem, and He will cast them down before you, slain upon slain. Rise early and stay late on their account at the beis midrash, and they will come to an end on their own.” Tosafos there raise a difficulty: the Gemara in Bava Kamma⁸ says, “One who hands over his grievance to Heaven is punished first.” They give answers there, and one of them reads: “Alternatively, ‘rise early and stay late on their account at the beis midrash’ means to busy yourself with Torah.” See their full wording there.

6But this explanation is hard to accept. If that were the meaning, R' Elazar should have said simply, “Rise early and stay late at the beis midrash,” that is, learn Torah for its own sake. Adding “on their account” makes it sound like learning in order to get something in return. Nor can we say that “on their account” is not meant precisely, for then the whole phrase would be superfluous: Mar Ukva surely rose early and stayed late at the beis midrash before this too. There is a second difficulty: the Gemara says the same thing twice. “He will cast them down, slain upon slain,” and also “rise early and stay late on their account … and they will come to an end on their own.” But if Hashem casts them down slain, they will certainly come to an end, and not on their own but by the hand of the Holy One, blessed be He. And a third difficulty: did neither R' Elazar nor Mar Ukva know what Bruriah, the wife of R' Meir, said in the Gemara in Berachos?⁹ “Is it written, ‘Let the sinners cease’? It is written, ‘Let sins cease.’¹⁰ Rather, pray for them that they return in teshuvah, and then ‘the wicked will be no more.’” Why did neither of them mention this counsel here at all?

7But with the words of the Mevaser Tzedek above, everything falls into place. Praying that the wicked return in teshuvah means drawing them toward oneself, and as we saw, that can also make them fall badly. That is why Mar Ukva was afraid to pray for them: he might not be able to draw them along with him. R' Elazar answered him with two things. First, “Be silent before Hashem, and He will cast them down, slain upon slain”: even if you do not pray for them at all, it is written, “Hashem will not abandon him into his hand,”¹¹ and He will surely cast them down, slain upon slain. Second, if you rise early and stay late on their account, that is, to draw them along with you to teshuvah, then at least they may return. That is “and they will come to an end on their own.” (See the sefer Birchos Shamayim on the Torah, in manuscript.) And see the compiler's gloss below, in Parshas Eikev, at number 63.