ABSTRACT
J. 'Said to them the Holy One, blessed be he, "The works of my hands are perishing in the sea, and do you want to sing a song before me?'"
Now the matter is resolved:
K. Said R. Yose bar Hanina, 'He does not rejoice, but others do rejoice. Note that it is written, "[And it shall come to pass, as the Lord rejoiced over you to do good, so the Lord] will cause rejoicing over you by destroying you" (Deut. 28:63) - and not "so will the Lord [himself] rejoice" '
L. That proves the case. (Ibid.)
God's emotions correspond, then, to those of a father or a mother, mourning at the downfall of their children, even though their children have rebelled against them. Even at the moment at which Israel first meets God, with God's act of liberation at the Sea, God cannot join them in their song. God and Israel then correspond, the eternal God in Heaven, Israel on earth, also destined for eternal life. Israel forms on earth a society that corresponds to the retinue and court of God in heaven. In its way, the halakhah in Sanhedrin-Makkot says no less. But it makes the statement, as we have seen, in all of the intimacy and privacy of Israel's interior existence: when (in theory at least) Israel takes responsibility for its own condition. Sanhedrin-Makkot, devoted to the exposition of crime and just punishment, turns out to form an encompassing exercise in showing God's mercy, even, or especially, for the sinner or criminal who expiates the sin or crime: that concludes the transaction, but a great deal will follow it - and from it.
