Avodah Zarah

This accords with the following saying of R. Samuel b. Nahmani, who said in the name of R. Jonathan: What is the meaning of the verse The saying of David the son of Jesse, and the saying of the man raised on high.  [It means this:] The saying of David the son of Jesse, the man who elevated the yoke of repentance.  R. Samuel b. Nahmani in the name of R. Jonathan also said: Every good deed that one does in this world precedes him and walks in front of him in the world to come, as it is said: And thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rearward.  Likewise, every transgression that one commits clasps him and leads him on the day of judgment, as it is said, They clasp him in the course of their way.  R. Eleazar said: It is tied on to him like a dog, as it is said, He hearkened not unto her, to lie by her, to be with her;  [it is to say that] to lie by her in this world, [would mean for him] to be with her in the world to come. Said Resh Lakish: Come let us render gratitude to our forebears,  for had they not sinned, we should not have come to the world, as it is said: I said ye are gods and all of you sons of the Most High; now that you have spoilt your deeds, ye shall indeed die like mortals etc.  Are we to understand that if the Israelites had not committed that sin they would not have propagated? Had it not been said, And you, be ye fruitful and multiply?  — That refers to those who lived up to the times of Sinai. But of those at Sinai, too, it is said, Go say to them, Return ye to your tents  which means to the joy of family life?  And is it not also said, that it might be well with them and with their children?  — It means to those of their children who stood at Sinai. But did not Resh Lakish [himself] say. What is the meaning of the verse This is the book of the generations of Adam?  Did Adam have a book? What it implies is that the Holy One, blessed be He, showed to Adam every [coming] generation with its expositors, every generation with its sages, every generation with its leaders; when he reached the generation of R. Akiba  he rejoiced at his teaching, but was grieved about his death, and said, How precious are Thy thoughts unto me, O God!  Also, what of the teaching of R. Jose:  The Son of David will only come when all the souls destined to [inhabit earthly] bodies will be exhausted, as it is said, For I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth, for the spirit should fall before me and the spirits which I have made?  — Do not take Resh Lakish's saying to mean that [if our ancestor had not sinned] we should not have come to the world, but that [they would have become immortal and] we should have been [disregarded] as if we had never come to the world. Does that mean then that if they had not sinned, they would have been immune from death? But there are written [in the Torah] the chapter about the widow of a man dying without issue, and the chapter about inheritances!  — These were written conditionally. But are conditional passages written [in the Torah]? — Certainly; for R. Simeon b. Lakish said:  What is the meaning of the verse, And it was evening and it was morning the sixth day?  It teaches us that the Holy One, blessed be He, made a condition with all creation, saying, If Israel will accept the Torah all will be well, but if not, I will turn the world void and without form. The following objection was then raised: 'The verse, O that they had such a heart as this alway that it may be well with them and their children  cannot obviously refer to the abolition of the angel of death, since the decree [of death] had already been made?  It means therefore that the effect of Israel's acceptance of the Torah would be that no nation or tongue could prevail against them, as it is said, that it might be well with them and their children after them'?  He [Resh Lakish] may be of the same opinion as the following Tanna, for it is taught: R. Jose said, The Israelites accepted the Torah only so that the Angel of Death should have no dominion over them, as it is said: I said ye are gods [i.e., immortals] and all of you children of the Most High, now that you have spoilt your deeds, ye shall indeed die like mortals.  But against R. Jose, too, [it may be argued] that the verse that it may be well with them and their children for ever holds out the promise of well-being but not of deathlessness? — R. Jose may reply: The abolition of death is surely as desirable a kind of well-being as you might wish for. Then how does the first Tanna  explain the phrase: Ye shall indeed die? — What may be meant here by dying is to become impoverished  for a Master has said:  Four [kinds of persons] may be regarded as dead, they are: the poor, the blind, the leprous, and the childless; the poor, for it is said, for all the men are dead which sought thy life  — now these 'men' were Dathan and Abiram, and they surely were not then dead, they only became reduced in their material circumstances; the blind, as it is said: He hath made me to dwell in darkness, as those that have been long dead;  the leprous, as it is said, Let her not, I pray thee, be as one who is dead;  the childless, as it is said, Give me children, or else I die.  Our Rabbis taught: In the verse, If ye walk in my statutes,  the word if is used in the sense of an appeal, similar to the verse, O that my people would hearken unto Me, that Israel would walk in my ways . . . I should soon subdue their enemies;  or in the verse, O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments: Then had thy peace been as a river, thy seed also had been as the sand, etc.  Our Rabbis taught: In the verse, O that they had such a heart alway.  Moses said to the Israelites, Ye are an ungrateful people, the offspring of an ungrateful ancestor. When the Holy One, blessed be He, said to you  . Who might grant that they had such a heart alway  , you should have said: 'Thou grant!' [They proved themselves] ungrateful by saying. Our soul loatheth