The Daily Strengthening from The Rav, the holy Tzaddik Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a — “Why Did the Blasphemer Curse?”

Wednesday, 21 Cheshvan 5786 — “The Blasphemer Could Have Reached Moshe’s Level,” these are his holy words:

What is the story with the blasphemer? Why did the blasphemer suddenly begin to curse? After all, Midrash Rabbah says that Shlomis’s husband was Dasan!

Shlomis had a pleasant husband—sweet, holy of holies. He only argued with the Tzaddik; that was his problem.

Dasan was a good, devoted husband. He washed the dishes, mopped the floor, cooked all the cooking. She would rest and say Tehillim, and he would do everything for her. He did only one thing that wasn’t good—he argued with the Tzaddik!

Dasan was Shlomis’s husband, and of course this child was not his (but the Egyptian’s). And then suddenly everyone was swallowed into the earth—suddenly everyone is swallowed into the earth: Dasan, Aviram, Korach, the children, the grandchildren, the great-grandchildren. Even the great-grandchildren were swallowed into the earth with the women, with the babies.

One person was not swallowed into the earth: the blasphemer. The blasphemer was not swallowed into the earth!

Everyone asked him: Why weren’t you swallowed into the earth? Why? The earth isn’t swallowing you—why?

(He answered:) What am I? I’m holy of holies! I’m a Tzaddik!

(They said to him:) No, no—there’s another reason here! Come, let’s go to Moshe and ask him.

They went to Moshe. He told the whole truth (that he was the son of the Egyptian and not of Dasan, and therefore he did not belong to the tribe of Reuven)—and immediately he began to curse.

In truth, he thought he was Dasan’s son. He thought he belonged to the tribe of Reuven. He didn’t know the story at all.

Suddenly the story was revealed—and immediately he cursed Moshe, cursed the Tzaddik, and was pushed away from the Tzaddik.

This was the moment he needed to do teshuvah. This was the moment he could have been so holy, so great—like Moshe. If he had held strong, he would have risen to Moshe’s level.

If he had accepted the humiliation with love, he would have risen to Moshe’s level—he could have been Moshe.

That is why it says “Vayikōv” (Vayikra 24, verses 1–23). It does not say “and he cursed”; “Vayekalel” (there) comes afterward. “Vayikōv”—meaning he made a breach between the World of Yetzirah and the World of Asiyah; he drew down lights from the World of Atzilus. He was so great.

Because the smallest woman was like Yechezkel ben Buzi. The Rambam brings, in Hilchos Shemoneh Perakim, at the end of the fourth chapter, that the smallest woman—even an Egyptian maidservant—saw things greater than Yechezkel ben Buzi.

So even the smallest person could behold the Merkavah, like Yechezkel who revealed the entire Merkavah. The whole point of the blasphemer was that he wanted to show them the Merkavah itself.