Parshas Eikev: Where Are My Blessings?

Where is my bracha? Read this as a great and piteous cry. Perhaps one theme that  (somewhat subtly) recurs in Parshas Eikev is that if you follow the ways of the Torah, your life will be blessed. So I want to know what I did to deserve this - my own current situation that is full of pain and for so many other people in my life who are struggling through situations of terrible suffering. I am not perfect, indeed I have a long way to go, but I try to follow Torah and Mitzvos. I try to keep growing spiritually, even though it’s one of the hardest tasks an individual can take on. I try to build a stronger connection with Hashem… So how do I relate when I read Moshe’s words: “And it will be, if you hearken to these ordinances, and guard them, and do them, that the Lord your God shall guard the covenant and the kindness that he swore to your forefathers; and He will love you, and bless you, and multiply you…” (Devarim 7:12-13).

If you look back at what is written above, you will surely recognize the classic question: Why do bad things happen to good people? And it is easy to understand why these thoughts might come to a person who finds themselves in a painful situation. After all, the good things that are meant to happen to those who follow the ways of the Lord are written in singular, so it seems to bear weight to me that if I observe the mitzvos then I should see blessing in my life.

This, alas, is the [spiritually] immature pattern of thought that most people suffer from. Reward and punishment is one of the basic tenants of the Jewish faith, but that does not mean that each person will understand their reward – or their punishment. It also does not mean that reward and punishment is immediate. Somewhere in the celestial realm, “records” [so to speak] are being maintained and at some time, generally believed to be in Olam HaBah (the world to come), our actions will result in their own returns.

But the words of Moshe in Parshas Eikev are so definitively here and now - “He will bless the fruit of your body and the fruit of your land, your corn and your wine and your oil, the calving of your herd and the lambing of your flock, in the land that He swore to your ancestors to assign to you” (7:13). And further: “The Lord will remove from you all sickness, and He will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you know, on you, but will lay them on your enemies” (7:15) – here it really feels like the Torah must be talking about rewards in Olam Hazeh (this world).

Looking back at the beginning of these verses one sees, interestingly, that Moshe does not say “If you will follow these mitzvos.” The text says “if you hearken to these ordinances,” using the word mishpatim, which is the term used for mitzvos that are like civil law – that are meant to build a just society. One can choose to be an “upright citizen,” for lack of a better term, but if the majority of the people choose to live with a different code of law, a different sense of moral right and wrong, then inevitably, one will also be brought down. This is one of the incredibly important lessons one can learn from the Midrashim on Parshas Noach. The hamas, violence, described in that generation was not murder and fighting, as we think of it today. It was about the corruption of morality, about the dissolution of civilization as people chose to live life by putting their individual desires ahead of everything else. It was the opposite of mishpatim, even as their generation had “rules and laws.” Those rules and laws were corrupted.

The significance of mishpatim and the seemingly individual blessings listed in Devarim 7 is that the singular is really the nation as a whole. When our nation as a whole fully follows the ways of Torah, then each of us can be blessed. But there is such a long way to go, and the path is only getting longer and steeper. Stepping back to the comparison above to the generation of Noah, it is not a difficult stretch of the imagination to see how the Western World of the 21^st century, the world in a which a good portion of Bnei Yisrael currently reside, is struggling not to fall into the individual-centered mind-frame that destroyed the generation of Noah. This is not just a comment on the general world. It is also a comment on the so-called observant society, for, inevitably, the societies in which our people dwell tend to leach into us. The shifting in moral viewpoints is incredibly subtle but there, nevertheless.

The opening of Parshas Eikev pricks at a person’s inherently selfish nature, their desire to be blessed and to live a life of goodness and ease. At the same time, this section, and a great deal of Parshas Eikev, is rife with warning. The mishpatim are not just a set of laws;They are a moral compass for our nation. When we as a people truly live according to the mishpatim, we will see blessings.

This being the case, one could easily despair at the idea of ever succeeding in getting all, or most, or even a lot, of the Jewish people to guard/observe the mishpatim. But here too we must look at the words of the Torah for inspiration and understanding. The second half of Devarim 7 is written in the singular second person because at the same time as one realizes that the promised blessings are based on the behaviour of the nation as a whole, one must realize that the only person that one can make certain is living according to the mishpatim is one's self. Each of us needs to regularly assess how much of a different moral standard has entered our point of view and readjust accordingly. And while this may not result in one’s own personal challenge ending, or resolving in the way that one hopes, your actions, each of our actions, have a great impact on the whole of the nation and move us closer to a time when we will each truly see the promised blessings.

 

 

Parshas Va’eschanan: Does the Opinion of the Nations Matter?

Does it matter what the other nations think of us? It is a question that is surely asked in different ways in every generation. Sometimes it is asked in an off-hand manner, sometimes condescendingly, and sometimes with honest concern. It sounds like a philosophical question but, in truth, it is really a practical one… or at least it should be, and it is one that needs to be particularly and uniquely addressed in the age of universal entertainment and social media.

There is a growing sense in the world that not only do we lack total privacy (given that Amazon, Walmart, and such, seem to know what one needs even before one begins to search) but that our every action is being judged. In a world of hyper-sensitivity to any form of “ism,” one might expect a decrease in anti-Semitism. Statistics, however, demonstrate the opposite. In an era of identity politics, Jewish identity is under attack – blatantly reminding us, once again, that it does matter what the other nations think. 

Before anyone gets defensive and declares that the relationship of Klal Yisrael and Hashem is what matters most and that Hashem runs the world and decides our fate – both collectively and individually, this is a fact that is not in question. But it is all one of a piece. The Torah shows us that Hashem wants us to pay attention to the entire world. In the beginning of parshas Va’eschanan, Moshe tells the people: “Observe them [laws and rules] faithfully, for that will be proof of your wisdom and discernment to other people, who on hearing of all these laws will say, ‘Surely, that great nation is a wise and discerning people’” (Bamidbar 4:6).

Moshe told Bnei Yisrael straight out that it is important to heed the feeling of the other nations toward the Jews. He did so because we are supposed to be an Am Kodesh, a sanctified nation. We are meant to be the spiritual leaders of the world, and if the other nations do not find us praiseworthy, we have failed.

It seems that this pasuk becomes particularly relevant as the world of observant Judaism is besmirched in entertainment media. With books and television shows being created as tell-alls about why people were miserable in their lives in observant communities, with a vaudevillian level of hyperbole to make certain it is entertaining, who would want to come to this Am and praise them for their faithfulness? Should we be angry at the people who create this media – certainly, particularly those who ignore the thought that it could damage the lives of many people. But perhaps watching the world swallow those portrayals without question should be an alarm to us, a clarion call to look at ourselves and how we behave.

It is not as simple as demanding strict observance of the law…indeed, perhaps this type of call – the one that demands new stringencies in the wake of tragedy – is one we must reevaluate all together. In this section of the Torah, Moshe also tells the people “Take the utmost care and watch yourselves scrupulously so that you do not forget the things that you saw with your own eyes and so they do not fade from your mind as long as you live” (ibid 4:9). What did Bnei Yisrael see? We saw miracles. And when we reacted to those miracles with joy and song, as we did after the Yam Suf, we rose to a position where the whole world was watching us with awe. This, according to our sages, was actually why the actions of Amalek were so heinous – that while the whole world saw triumph and power and God’s greatness through Bnei Yisrael, they dared to attack. However, when Bnei Yisrael “forgot” the power of the miracles that had been witnessed, when they complained and looked only to what they did not have and to fear and anxiety, then Klal Yisrael suffered.

Our history tells us of the glorious ages of the past, when the Beis Hamikdash was a beacon to the world. And we lost it. First to our inability to remain faithful, as Moshe warns, and then to our inability to live with joy and love – because sinas chinam, senseless hatred, only comes from a place where there is no true joy.

To be the nation that inspires the world, we must remember Moshe’s words to “observe faithfully,” but we must do so with joy and with love. Moshe gives us some subtle clues of how to do this in this parsha as well: “You shall not add anything to what I command you or take anything away from it” (ibid 4:2).  The world of Jewish life that is portrayed so negatively in entertainment media is a world that is fettered by chosen limitations and enforced judgementalism.  We must remember that there were twelve distinct shvatim and that our tradition speaks of seventy faces to the Torah. Do not add means remember that a chumrah is a stringency, something a person or community takes upon themselves to enhance their devotion, but when a stringency becomes a rule then have we not added to the Torah? Have we not created a new “law”? Or, at least, are we not teaching our children that these are laws when they are not?

Does it matter what the other nations think of us? Yes, it does. “Observe faithfully,” pasuk 4:6, is said to the klal as a whole in the second person plural, but the call to watch yourselves scrupulously is spoken individually, in second person singular. For us to rise again to the pinnacle of world opinion, to the place where we are looked upon with awe, we have to focus not on the differences, on the individual expressions within the realm of Torah observance, for each of us must guard our own souls. Rather we must demonstrate joy and ahavas Yisrael. When all Jews feel that they have a place in the nation, then we can start to rise again, and when the world sees our nation come together and radiate the beauty of Hashem’s Torah, we will finally have succeeded in becoming an Ohr Goyim, a light unto the nations.

 

 

 

 

Parshas Devarim: Learning from the Generation

It is, as many know, not a coincidence that we read parshas Devarim, the first portion of the final book of the Torah, on the Shabbas before Tisha B’Av (9th of Av), the day on which we mourn a series of calamities in Jewish life. Devarim is, as is noted in the opening phrase, a recording of the words that Moshe spoke to Bnei Yisrael before his death and their entry to eretz Yisrael, and he began by talking about the demand of the people for sending scouts into the Promised Land and their refusal to enter the Land after the scouts returned. 

There are many excellent reasons for this to be Moshe’s starting point, not the least of which is because the reactions of Bnei Yisrael to the report of the scouts were the reason the nation had to remain in the Wilderness for four decades. And yet, it seems a strange place to begin a review of the journey of Bnei Yisrael. Why wouldn’t Moshe begin at the beginning, with Hashem instructing him to lead them out of Mitzrayim, or with their experiences at the crossing of the Sea and camping at Har Sinai? On the other hand, if one is going to state the great infraction of the burgeoning Jewish nation, most of us think first to the Cheit Ha’egel, the Golden Calf, of which here there is no mention. 

In sefer Bereishis, humanity received two great punishments. They were utterly obliterated, with the exception of Noach, by the flood as a punishment for becoming corrupt and so depravedly self-centered that they wantonly stole and plundered from each other.  Not long after, another generation is struck down and scattered by a transformation in their communication (no longer able to speak the same language) as a punishment for raising a tower to make war against the Heavens. The difference in the two incidents, the reason that Hashem did not destroy humanity again at the Tower of Babel, was that Hashem could accept His creation fighting with Him but He could not accept His creation destroying one another. From here we are taught that Hashem values Bein Adam L’Chavero over Bein Adam L’Makom (interpersonal behaviors over those between a person and the Divine).

Perhaps remembering these distinctions will help us see the difference in Moshe’s perspective on the people's behavior during the Cheit Ha’egel verses their reaction to the scouts. The commentators explain that the people made the Golden Calf because they miscalculated Moshe’s time on Har Sinai. They expected him to have returned and so they panicked. They created the calf not to be a replacement for Hashem, but to be a replacement for Moshe, to be a new intermediary. They were wrong, of course, but they were also misguided and, perhaps, spiritually confused due to the idolatrous world that had surrounded them throughout their lives.

The Incident of the Scouts happened not long thereafter, but the exposure of the underlying flaw of the nation was far more insidious. They did not lack faith, they lacked trust and they lacked hope. They knew that Hashem exists and that Hashem was active in their lives, and yet somehow they could not believe that they could conquer and be successful in the Promised Land. More significantly, however, was that how they each reacted undermined the future of their fellow Jews.

While both the Chait Ha’egel and the reaction to the scouts appear to be issues of trusting Hashem, the comparison is in the ramifications. Like Migdal Bavel, the Cheit Haegel was a group of people but each was compromising their own individual relationship with the Divine. They joined together from peer pressure, but the actions had the greatest impact on themselves. Like the dor haflaga, the nation of the flood, the generation that came out of Egypt and who bemoaned their fate and cried out against their ability to conquer the Promised Land were determined to act in a way that put others in danger. Refusing to enter Eretz Yisrael was an action that affected not only them but their children and their future generations. Moaning that they wanted to go back to Mitzrayim demonstrated a psychological state that preferred the depravity of Egypt to the promises of living a full Torah life. (This fits even with the Midrashim that speak of the generation’s reaction as an attempt to stay in the environment of being secluded with Hashem, because truly acquiring Torah – and the benefits of Torah - mean taking it into the world, into real life, and living it.) 

The generation that came out of Egypt was in no means depraved as was the generation of the flood. They did not deserve to be annihilated in one fell swoop. But they were so deeply flawed that their actions had incredible ramifications on the lives of all of their descendants – for generations. The anniversary of the bewailing of the people as a reaction to the report of the scouts is Tisha B’Av. This is the date on which both Temples were destroyed, on which the Roman Emperor Hadrian plowed over the city, and on which the Bar Kochba Rebellion was decimated. This is the date on which Jews were kicked out of England in 1290 and on which the great Expulsion from Spain took place. This is the date of endless tragedy because the generation that came out of Mitzrayim could not take the lessons they had learned of Hashem’s ability and desire to perform miracles for them and take the first step to independent Torah living. 

Had we moved into Eretz Yisrael when Hashem first led the people there, the history of the world and the fate of the Jewish people would have been very different. The sages placed the reading of Devarim at this time, just before Tisha B’Av, because just as the action of that generation continues its impact on us, we need to read/hear Moshe’s words so that we can try to repair the exile that, in many ways, began before we even entered the land. 

Parshos Matos-Masai: Using Our Roles

WARNING: THIS DVAR TORAH IS NOT POLITCALLY CORRECT BY 21^ST CENTURY STANDARDS

The Book of Numbers, Sefer Bamidbar, concludes just as Bnei Yisrael are ready to enter the Promised Land. All that remains is Moshe’s final speech, which is Sefer Devarim, the Book of Deuteronomy. In the last parshiot of Bamidbar, Matos-Masai, which are usually read together, we learn some interesting lessons on the importance of societal strength over personal happiness in the realm of family values.

One of the more well-known and “fun” to discuss portions of the parsha is the section pertaining to the tribes of Reuven and Gad. These two tribes see the lovely pasture-land where they are encamped and decided that they wish to remain there. When they ask Moshe for permission to do so, he rebukes them for stating: “Pens for the flock shall we build here for our livestock and cities for our small children” (Bamidbar 32:17). Their values are mixed up, he tells them. They understand then that their responsibility is to build cities for their small children and then pens for their livestock. But this passage does not just help them realize that their families come before their material security. In specifying that the men of Gad and Reuven must first build cities and pens and then leave to go and fight for the Promised Land, Moshe is subtly reinforcing the idea that as comfortable as a man’s home may be, he cannot enjoy the comforts of home until he has ensured its security and protection (which in this case means assisting in the conquest of Eretz Yisrael so that all of the people could build for their families).

To the 21^st century ear, this sounds old fashioned. We do not think of the world as dangerous in the ways it once was. And women can, and do, go out into the world to support and protect themselves and their homes.  Indeed, there is much that is in the parshios of Matos-Masai that would raise an eyebrow of any feminist – and perhaps of most women raised in modern society. In fact, the parshios are bookended by such subjects! Parshas Matos begins with the laws of vows and focuses heavily on the circumstances under which a woman’s vow is upheld or invalidated by her father or husband. And Parshas Masai concludes with the men of Menashe seeming to want to undo Hashem’s ruling that Tzelaphchad’s daughters – who had no brother – could inherit their father’s land. A complaint to which Moshe brings Hashem’s response that the five sisters, and any future women in a similar situation, can only marry men from within their tribe.

Shalom – peace – is a primary goal of halacha. Shalom comes from shelaimus, completion, and the societal dynamics set out by the Torah are meant to guide Bnei Yisrael into creating an ideal, Torah society. This is not about individual wants and needs, it is about the weave of the fabric of a strong, sustainable society.

Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsh wrote the following at the conclusion of the opening section of Matos:

…the general declaration of the gravity and binding force of the spoken word is only mentioned here as introduction and indeed as a contrast. A man has no power whatsoever to annul his own vows, for that he has to go to his national contemporaries, but towards his young daughter and his wife he has restricted authority to intervene… The calling of woman is, to be absorbed into the home of a man as the most important factor of the component parts of that home. But it is not her calling to found a home independently….

 

To this should be added his comments on 30:4 (earlier in the section on a woman’s vows):

The moral greatness of the woman’s calling in life itself demands entering and adopting herself to a position in life created by another. The woman herself does not provide the house. She enters the home provided by the man and rules in it as the happiness-bringing administrator of all that is to be found there, in the sanctity of manners, and morals and feeling directed towards God. Still more than the man has the woman to guard against making restrictions, abnormal arrangements in the course of her life, they could permanently stand in the way of the fulfilment of her calling…

The power of a father or husband to annul a vow is not about the individual. A woman can make a vow, but that vow cannot go against the current or future possibility of creating a peaceful home by creating a conflict with her husband (or future husband). And we know that a woman can make a vow because it is clearly stated that a vow made by a widow or a divorcee is binding. 

Understanding of the distinction between individual need and societal need is also important to understand the ruling at the end of Masai that states: “And every daughter that has an inheritance from the tribes of Bnei Yisrael shall marry one of the tribe of her father” (36:8). To maintain the larger society, property had to stay in its rightful portion, to its proper tribe. One must look at it from that point of view rather than a modern, feminist point of view as the suppression of women’s independence. If that had been the goal, then God’s immediate response through Moshe would not have been: “They may marry anyone they wish. But they shall marry into a clan of their father’s tribe.” The first statement is a woman’s right to make her own decisions, a very important point of Jewish law.

Twenty-first century society places a great deal of emphasis on making oneself happy. The Torah ideal, however, is to use one’s position in the world to find fulfillment and build toward shalom, then one can be happy. Yes, there are limitations, but those limitations – those rules and roles – are meant to help the larger society attain the ultimate goal of a society dedicated to Hashem.

Parshas Pinchas: Pieces of Unity

 Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch has a beautiful commentary on Bamidbar 26:53, which is the opening of the section of the Torah in which Hashem explains how the Promised Land will be divided. The verse says: “To these shall the Land be divided as an inheritance, according to the number of names,” Rav Hirsch comments that this explains that the land was to be divided by each tribe, each family, and each male over twenty years of age. He then says: “This seems to be a realisation of what we have repeatedly remarked as being the fundamental character of the Jewish nation, that the greatest diversity of tribal family and individual characteristics within an equally great spiritual and moral uniformity belong to the calling of the People of the Torah. Each Tribe, each branch of it, each home had its own special characteristics which it is to keep and develop and which is to have its place on the common universal ground of the Torah…”

Reading this statement brings one to the startling realization that our constant call for Jewish unity is truly attainable - And yet, it remains so sadly elusive. Rav Hirsch here accentuates the beauty of twelve shevatim. Each tribe had their own character traits, their own minhagim, and their own strengths. A man from Dan could not be judgemental about a man from Gad being different from him – wearing different type of clothes or singing different tunes to a song – because it was recognized and understood that they would each be different. Different does not mean better and it does not mean worse. Human nature, however, has an unfortunate habit of thinking that something that is different needs to be something that is comparative. In every corner of the earth, people struggle to realize that it is part of the design of the world that different people have different ways of doing things.

It is actually interesting to take a moment and note that the need to be flexible, to accept and make room for variations on the norm, is a lesson from a separate perek of this week’s parsha. Tzelaphchad’s daughters approach Moshe and request to be the inheritors of their father’s land. Before his sin and punishment, Tzelaphchad was part of those who were to have a portion, and that portion was still the right of their family. In no way does there appear to be an opening for a deviation from the normal laws of inheritance, but the women of the family follow the appropriate channels and make their request. From their actions one could take the lesson that it is ok to step outside the norms as long as one does so in a manner befitting Torah, in a way that still recognizes Hashem and Torah above one’s personal desires.

In the modern age, we have come a long way to accepting differences among major Jewish communities. Ashkenazim and Sephardim have improved significantly on appreciating the cultural differences that make each distinct within the greater whole. The customs that once defined chassidim from misnagdim have blurred as each have taken minhagim from the other. And yet, we still have not come far enough. Even as we speak of respecting others’ differences, within our own communities we make judgements on miniscule variations. This one wears a colored shirt and that one does not… should such small differences really define people? The important part, as Rav Hirsch pointed out, is that all are living within “an equally great spiritual and moral uniformity.”

Jewish unity is a perpetual theme for Divrei Torah because our progress in Ahavas Chinam is two steps forward and one step back. Let us remember that our quest for true Jewish unity begins on the smallest level with our individual interactions. Rabbi Yochanan Kirschblum, in his book Thinking Outside the Box, Bamidbar, references Megila 6a, on which it records that the tribe of Zevulon complained that the other tribes received fields and vineyards and fertile land, while they had received hills and mountains, lakes and rivers. Hashem responded that in his portion would be found the precious chilazon, the snail that provided a unique blue die. Rabbi Kirschblum uses this Midrash to comment that “Each of us is like the land portion of Zevulon. Each of us has hidden valuable talents and abilities that are not readily visible to the undiscerning eye…each one of us has a hidden talent that is representative of all the mitzvos in the Torah.”

In our greater nation and within our individual communities, we have to stop looking at differences as threatening or problematic and start recognizing the values in our variations. We must work to accomplish this and to teach this skill to our children, and only then can we begin to understand the true power of the Jewish nation.