East is Least, West is Best

Moses raised his rod over the land of Egypt and all that day and night God made an east wind blow over the land; and when morning came the east wind was carrying the locusts.                                                                    Exodus 10:13 All retribution comes from the east, as the verse states: “With the east wind You break the ships of Tarshish…” [Psalms 48:8]; “a vehement east wind…” [Jonah 4:8]; “a powerful east wind…” [Exodus 14:21].                  Midrash Lekaḥ Tov

            Rabbeinu Behayye notes that there are additional verses which indicate that God brings retribution specifically from the east:

Concerning two tribes it is written: “I will scatter them as the east wind before the enemy…” [Jeremiah 18:17]; concerning ten tribes it is written: “an east wind will come up from the wilderness, then his water source will fail and his spring will run dry…” [Hosea 13:15]; concerning the time of exile it is written: “He removed her with His rough blast on the day of the east wind…” [Isaiah 27:8]; of Tyre it is written: “the east wind has shattered you in the heart of the sea…” [Ezekiel 27:26]

            As well, Rabbeinu Behayye notes the other side: “while the east wind brings retribution, the west wind removes it,” as verse 19 informs us: “God turned the wind around (transforming it into) a very strong west wind, which carried the locusts and plunged them into the Red Sea. Not a single locust remained within all Egypt’s borders.”

            We can understand the significance of the directions of retribution and the end of retribution based upon an additional comment of Lekaḥ Tov [Genesis 1:14]:

the Shechina is in the west, therefore the ark of the Tabernacle was in the west, and so with the Holy of Holies of the Temple.                                    

            The Mishna, [Sukka 5:4] in describing the processional of the water drawing ceremony, which marched from the Courtyard of the Israelites to the eastern gate of the Temple Mount, writes:

When they reached the gate through which one exits to the east, they turned from facing east to face west (toward the Holy of Holies), and said: “Our ancestors who were in this place (during the First Temple period) stood with their backs toward the Sanctuary of the Lord, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east [Ezekiel 8:16], but we, our eyes are to God.

            Combining the words of the Mishna and of Lekaḥ Tov, we can understand that retribution comes from the east, the direction of the rising sun, to make it clear that the sun is not a divinity, but is dependent upon the Almighty, while west, the direction of the Shechina, is the direction of the end of retribution.