Rabbi Roodyn

The Malbim has an extensive commentary on this chapter and I would like to spend some time going through it. No translation can to justice to the Malbim’s commentary, his command of the Hebrew language, and his ability to convey subtleties and nuances are simply lost when rendered into English. I will try my best to give a free rather than literal translation and I daven that I should be able to convey the true meaning of his words.

He explains that this whole chapter is coming to refute those philosophers who belittle the importance of man and the significance of his presence on earth. Such people think that it is ridiculous to refer to man as the pinnacle of creation, and Hashem’s portion in this world.

To be fair, their claims do sound credulous. This world is like a drop in the ocean of planets and stars in our galaxy. One would have to be crazy to think that the entire universe was created for mankind, who appears to be a tiny dot on a massive landscape.

The Malbim makes reference to the size of the Earth compared to the מסילה החלביית, the Milky way, based on what was known about astronomy in his time (he died in 1879). The issues that he raises are made much stronger by contemporary astronomy. Current estimates put the number of stars (such as the sun) in our galaxy alone as between 100-400 billion. The Malbim was obviously  unaware of that  according to the best estimates of present day astronomers there are at least one hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe. These numbers are far beyond our comprehension, but are important to bear in mind as we go through this chapter.

Rosh Hashana is not the birthday of the world, rather we are marking and celebration the significance of mankind. On this day Hashem evaluates us all and allocates resources on the basis of our hopes, dreams and desires. Without a doubt it is a serious day, yet at the same time there is a mitzvah of simchas Yom Tov. We dress in our Yom Tov clothes and enjoy festive meals in the company of family and friends. The simcha of the day is drawn from the fact that it is the day of judgement and that we are deemed worthy enough of being judged by the Creator himself. If our lives were irrelevant, there would be no point to any accountability whatsoever.

As we progress through this chapter we will see, through the eyes and words of David Hamelech’s Divine inspiration just quite how significant and important we really are.