Sefer ha-Bahir 194-195 -- why the righteous suffer
Sefer ha-Bahir · The Book of Brilliance
ספר הבהיר · קצד-קצה
canonical late 12th c., Provence (ascribed to the 1st c. tanna) Hebrew Anonymous (attributed to Rabbi Nehunya ben ha-Kanah) tr. Hekhal Targum Project (machine-assisted draft; pending scholarly review)
The book’s clearest answer to the problem of evil. Moses’ unanswered question — why the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper, the innermost working of the divine thought he could not reach (§ 194); and the answer through the transmigration of souls: the suffering righteous was wicked in a former life, the soul replanted like a vineyard again and again, to a thousand generations (§ 195).
A provisional scholarly draft, released openly for correction and not yet reviewed by a credentialed editor. The Hebrew is reproduced verbatim from the Hebrew Wikisource transcription; the standard modern English translation (Kaplan, 1979) is under copyright.
אמר רבי רחומאי כך קבלתי כשבקש משה לדעת ידיעת השם הנכבד והנורא ית’ ואמר (שמות ל”ג יח) הראיני נא את כבודך, בקש לדעת מפני מה צדיק וטוב לו צדיק ורע לו, ורשע וטוב לו רשע ורע לו ולא הודיעוהו. ולא הודיעוהו סלקא דעתך, אלא לא הודיעוהו מה שבקש, וכי תעלה על דעתך שמשה לא היה יודע סוד זה אלא כך אמר משה דרכי הכחות אני יודע אבל איני יודע איך המחשבה מתפשטת בה, יודע אני שבמחשבה האמת אבל לא ידעתי חלקיו ובקשו לדעת ולא הודיעוהו:
Rabbi Rechumai said: thus I received — when Moses sought to know the knowledge of the honored and awesome Name, blessed be He, and said (Exodus 33:18), ‘show me, I pray, Your glory,’ he sought to know why [there is] a righteous one and it is good for him, a righteous one and it is bad for him, a wicked one and it is good for him, a wicked one and it is bad for him — and they did not inform him. ‘They did not inform him’ — does it enter your mind? Rather, they did not inform him what he sought. And would it enter your mind that Moses did not know this secret? Rather, thus said Moses: I know the ways of the powers, but I do not know how the thought (machashavah) spreads within it; I know that in the thought is the truth, but I did not know its portions. And he sought to know, and they did not inform him.
Provisional draft (pending scholarly review)
מפני מה צדיק וטוב לו צדיק ורע לו, מפני שהצדיק הזה כבר היה רשע לשעבר ועתה נענש, וכי מענשין על ימי הנערות, והאמר ר’ סימון שאין מענשין בבית דין של מעלה אלא מבן עשרים שנה ומעלה, אמר ליה אנא לא בחיי אמרי, אנא דאמרי שכבר היה לשעבר אמרו לו חביריו עד מתי תסתום דבריך, אמר להם צאו וראו משל למה”ד לאדם שנטע בגנו כרם ויקו לעשות ענבים ויעש באושים, ראה שלא הצליח נטעו גדרו ופרצו ונקה הגפנים מן הבאושים ונטעו עוד שנית ראה שלא הצליח גדרו נטעו אחר שנקה וראה שלא הצליח ועקרו ונטעו עד כמה, א”ל לאלף דור דכתיב (תהלים ק”ה ח) דבר צוה לאלף דור, והיינו דאמרו, תתקע”ד דורות חסרו ועמד הקב”ה ושתלן בכל דור ודור:
Why [is there] a righteous one and it is good for him, a righteous one and it is bad for him? Because this righteous one was already wicked in the past, and is now punished. And do they punish for the days of youth? Did not Rabbi Simon say that they do not punish in the heavenly court except from the age of twenty and above? He said to him: I did not say in his [present] life; I say [regarding] that he already was [wicked] in the past. His colleagues said to him: how long will you conceal your words? He said to them: go out and see. A parable: to what is it comparable? To a man who planted a vineyard in his garden and hoped it would make grapes, and it made wild grapes (be’ushim); he saw that it did not succeed; he planted it, fenced it, breached it, and cleaned the vines from the wild grapes, and planted it again a second time; he saw that it did not succeed; he fenced it, planted it after he cleaned it, and saw that it did not succeed, and uprooted it and planted it. Until how many [times]? He said to him: to a thousand generations, as it is written (Psalm 105:8), ‘the word He commanded to a thousand generations’; and this is what they said: nine hundred and seventy-four generations were lacking, and the Holy One arose and planted them in each and every generation.
Provisional draft (pending scholarly review)
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This edition sets the verbatim Hebrew beside a fresh English rendering and a critical apparatus: a running commentary on the passage, notes on the controlled vocabulary and the rendering chosen for each term, and cross-references to the lexicon and to related sections. It is a provisional scholarly draft, released openly for correction and not yet reviewed by a credentialed editor.
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Moses’ question: why the righteous suffer
When Moses said ‘show me, I pray, Your glory’ (Exodus 33:18), he sought (per the rabbinic reading, Berakhot 7a) to know the deepest problem: ‘a righteous one, and it is good for him; a righteous one, and it is bad for him; a wicked one, and it is good for him; a wicked one, and it is bad for him’ — the prosperity of the wicked and the suffering of the just. ‘And they did not inform him’ — not that Moses was ignorant, but that this was withheld: Moses says ‘I know the ways of the powers, but I do not know how the thought (machashavah) spreads within it — I know that in the thought is the truth, but I did not know its portions.’ Sod: Moses grasped the grades (the ‘powers’/sefirot) but not the innermost workings of the divine thought (Chokhmah / Keter) in which the true reason for each person’s lot is held.
the answer: the transmigration of souls (gilgul)
The answer — withheld from Moses but here disclosed — is the transmigration of souls (gilgul): ‘this righteous one who suffers was already wicked in the past, and is now punished’ for a former life (not for the sins of his youth, which the heavenly court does not punish before twenty, Shabbat 89b). A parable: a man plants a vineyard that yields only wild grapes (be’ushim); he fences, breaches, cleans, uproots, and replants — again and again. ‘Until how many times? To a thousand generations’ (Psalm 105:8) — and since ‘nine hundred and seventy-four generations were lacking’ before the Torah was given (Chagigah 13b), ‘the Holy One planted them in each and every generation.’ Sod: the soul is replanted across lives until it bears good fruit; the suffering of the righteous and the ease of the wicked are the just accounting of former lives — the Bahir’s clearest use of gilgul to answer theodicy (see the reused garments, § 122, and the treasury of souls, § 184).
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