➡ The text tells a story about Alexander the Great visiting two cities. In the first city, he learns wisdom from women. In the second city, he witnesses a dispute over a found treasure. The city’s king suggests the children of the disputing parties marry and share the treasure, avoiding theft. The story illustrates the concept of justice and fairness, relating to a verse from Psalm 36 about God saving both man and beast.
➡ Alexander is told that his land’s prosperity, including sun and rain, is due to the presence of sheep and goats, which God favors. Despite his wrongdoings, he and his people are spared for the sake of these innocent animals. The African king explains that his country’s wealth comes from a government that doesn’t steal, fostering a culture of honesty among its people. The message is clear: a country’s wealth is tied to its government’s integrity, and prosperity comes when the government doesn’t steal.

This capital city planet amazonia! Where are all the men in your society? Men die out many year ago! With all these women around, they’ll probably nag to death. Are you with me fellas? We’re going to go through today’s comments on this verse. He uses verses jumping off points to tell the stories, to teach lessons, to interpret. The verse here is Psalm 36, verse 7. It says here, Your beneficence, or your justice is like the high mountains. Your justice, like the great deep, or your laws, like the great deep, man and beast you deliver, O Lord.

The question that Dimitris has on this verse is, what does beast have to do with anything? Why is he saving beasts? This is talking about justice. It’s talking about man. What does beast have to do with anything? We’re going to go into this story here, and it is in Aramaic, and I will translate it as I read it in Aramaic. It starts here in the highlight. It says here, What does it mean that God saves man and beast? What is that talking about? It goes into a story of Alexander the Great. He goes to a certain country, one country, its name is Kartinda, and I looked in the other verses of the story, and this is probably a typo, the name of the city, I think it’s a fictional city, because this is a mashal, this is just a proverb, or what do you call it, like a fable, right? I don’t think it’s historical, but the other version of the story has the name Karta Gaina.

So Karta is the Aramaic word for city, or urban place, and Gaina is obviously a woman, as in gynaecologist. So Karta Gaina would be city of women. Dehi kula denashim, it says here, this city is all women, therefore this is probably a typo, it should say Karta Gaina. Nafgula kadamute, so the people of the women of Karta Gaina go up to Alexander the Great, amrulay, i at avadit iman krava v’it saktlan, and they say to him, if you’ve come here to conquer us in battle, and you beat us, shim khanafik ba’ama demahosa deneshaya i trichat, your name will go out in the world as someone who beats up women.

V’i anan avden iman ima krava natskan lak, and if you’ve come to fight us and we beat you, shim khanafik ba’ama denasya avden ima krava natskan lak, your name will go out to the world as the guy who was beaten by a bunch of women. And this story is part of the general fables or myths that there are these cities of women, like Amazonian women, who are very strong and good in battle, that’s where Wonder Woman comes from, so this is another version of that. I usually don’t say this, but you are the most beautiful trio of gigantic ladies I’ve ever laid eyes on.

I, Alexander the Great of Macedon, was dumb until I came to Carthaginna, and I learned advice from women, I took advice from women, and then I became wise. So that’s one part of the story. This story continues, and here is the relevant part for us in our lesson about gold and theft. Azal medinta ahari dishme afrique, he goes to another city or another country called Africa, I don’t know if it’s actually Africa or some place in Africa, or it’s some exotic places, the point. They come out to the people of Africa, go out to Alexander to greet him with gold apples and gold pomegranates and golden bread.

He says to them, don’t you have this in your land too? Why did you come here? He says, your wealth, I didn’t come to see your wealth, and I’ve come to see your justice, I’ve come to see your laws. Ad ino nyatvin atra tre gavel idina kadamalka, as he is saying this, two people from the town or from the country or whatever come for a case in judgment in front of the king. One of them says, my lord the king, I bought this destroyed property, this destroyed real estate from this guy, and I started digging around, searching around, and I found a treasure, I found some gold, right? And I said to him, take your treasure, because I bought this destroyed real estate from you, I didn’t buy a treasure, so it’s not mine, it’s yours.

And the other guy says, you’re worried about getting punished for stealing? I’m also worried about getting punished for stealing. When I sold you, what I sold you, I sold you the destroyed real estate, the destroyed house or whatever it is, and anything that’s in it, I sold you the whole property, that includes all the treasures that you might dig up in there, it’s yours. Kara, you could expect this actually from a place where everything is so full of gold that they give Alexander golden bread and golden apples and golden pomegranates, and they just say that’s their gift, right? Because there’s so much gold in this country that they don’t want to steal from each other, they have enough wealth, so they’re worried and they want to be moral.

They say, no, this is yours, no, this is yours, what do we do? So they’re not going to the judge to claim the gold, they’re going to the judge to claim the other guy as the gold, right? It’s the opposite of what you would expect, that’s how rich this place is, maybe it’s like El Dorado or something. So anyway, Kara maka lachad minhon, the king calls one of them, amar leit lach bar dachar, do you have a male son? Amar lei hen, and he says, yep, I do. Kara lacharina, he says to the other guy, amar leit lach barat nukvah, do you have a female daughter? Amar lei hen, he says, yeah, I do.

Amar lei hen, gizlun, v’yinsav, denlidane, v’yechlun samatarweihun. So he says, they should go and marry each other, one to another, and then they can both benefit from the treasure. So this is an interesting answer, because my daughter had said when I told her this story, why don’t they just split the treasure? Well, splitting the treasure would be problematic, because if you can’t tell, you can’t determine who belongs, who the treasure belongs to, then if they split it, then somebody is stealing half from the other person. So that’s not the perfect solution. But since they’re kids, if one of them gives it to their kids, and their kids get married, and they share it, well, if it belongs to one guy, then he gave it to his kid, and then he’s sharing it with the other kid, with the other kid, or the guy, or the girl, whoever it is, right? And then they both have it.

But if it’s the other guy’s kids, if it’s the other guy’s treasure, then he gives it to his kid, and he shares it with the one that he married, or she married, right? So either way, in that case, when they’re giving it to their kids, and their kids get married, none of them are stealing, whereas if they would divide the treasure, somebody’s stealing from somebody else. So this really is the perfect solution. Anyway, so what does Alexander do? Sorry, sorry, Alexander Mokdontama. Alexander of Macedon was shocked. He was surprised. Amaralei Malka, my temehate. So the king of Africa, he says, what are you so shocked about? Lota Anatavut? And he said, did I not give a good verdict here? This is a pretty good verdict.

No, what’s your problem? Amaralei Ini. And Alexander says, yeah, it is. Amaralei Iluhadein Dinabarachon, Mahavetunadinbe. So he says, well, if you have this case in your land, what would you do? Amaralei, now this is the key here. So what does Alexander say? Meirim rei sheh didein verei sheh didein vesimta sakalave Malka. So he says, I would cut off this guy’s head and that guy’s head, and I would bring the treasure to the government, to the house of the king. These men need you to settle a dispute. They each claim ownership of this pie. The pie shall be cut in two.

Then each man shall receive death. I’ll eat the pie. Okay, why is it why I looked in the commentary for why Alexander would do that? It’s because all treasure that’s buried underground belongs to the government in Macedon and Greece. And since both of them are trying to keep the treasure for the other person, then they’re both trying to steal from the government and therefore they get put to death. Now, that sounds pretty extreme, but that actually is the law here in Israel that anything that is found, old archaeological gold silver coins, whatever, it belongs to the government.

If you keep it, you are fined. You’re not killed, but the principle is the same, that all the buried treasure belongs to the government. It is stealing by the government and it is not good. So, we’ll conclude the story at last, and here it goes. Remember, this story is to explain the verse, Adam of Ahimatoshi Hashem, that God saves man and animal. And what does animals have to do with anything with God’s justice? So, here is the answer to that question. The king of Africa says to Alexander of Macedon, Do you have sun in your land? So, Alexander says, yeah, we’ve got sun, sun shines.

Does the rain fall in your land? Yep, we got rainfall too. Do you have sheep and goats in your land? Yep, we’ve got sheeps and goats. The king of Africa says, it’s only because of the merit of the sheeps and the goats that you have rain and sun in your land. And because of the sheeps and the goats, you are saved. Because you, Alexander, are a thief and a murderer. And the only reason that you’re still alive, and your country is still alive, and there’s still people in Greece, is because you have sheep and goats, and God takes mercy on the sheep and the goats, and that’s why you’re still alive, because you’re clearly an immoral person.

And that’s what the verse means, Adam of Ahimatoshi Hashem, that man is saved in the merit of animals, that evil men are saved in the merit of animals. They get rain, they get sun, they get food, so that the animals who are innocent can continue to live in peace. And so you have this country in Africa, whatever it is, where everything is gold. And why is everything gold? Why are they so rich? Because the government doesn’t steal. And if the government doesn’t steal, it creates a culture where people don’t want to steal either.

So you have this guy trying to give the gold to the other guy, another guy trying to give the gold back to this guy, and then the king saying, why don’t your kids just get married and you share it? That would be the best solution. So if you have a government, or a country where the government steals all the wealth, you’re going to have a poor country. If you have a country where the government doesn’t steal anything, or steals a minimum if you’re a monarchist libertarian, then you’re going to have a rich country.

It really is that simple. If you want to be rich, go to a place where the government doesn’t steal. Thank you. [tr:trw].

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