A thought on Parshas Ki Tetze

"...ki HaShem Elokecha mis'halech b'kerev machanecha...""... for HaShem your Lord walks in the midst of your camp..." (23:15)

Moshe emphasizes our need to maintain sanctity in our encampments for wherever we go, G-d is among us.

The Chezkuni hastens to clarify that the "G-d walking in our midst" is a reference to the Ark of the Torah. The Torah walks among us as we travel.

Now, let us aim for perspective. Even if "G-d our Lord" is a euphemism for the Torah, we still have to remember that our G-d the Lord of the Universe is not a thing or a physical entity that might be a "walking presence" among us or in any other particular place. If He is "walking", then He is "walking" everywhere and not only in our camp. And if "He" means "the Torah", as Chezkuni writes, how is that a reason for us needing to keep our camp sanctified? Surely our rationale for sanctity is because HaShem is "around" us. What does that have to do with an Ark?

My sense is that the Chezkuni understands the cause-and-effect of the verse differently that we read it. We are supposed to sense G-d's Presence in our midst. We do that by bringing Godliness into our camp. The Torah embodies Godliness for us for it is the center of His plan for us and for the universe. (You see this spelled out in the birchas haTorah which we recite each day. Pay attention and you will notice.) Now, the fact that we carry the Torah along with us wherever we walk can mean that Godliness walks in our midst. Or, it may just mean that we are carrying a box around with us that has some old scrolls. What's it going to be?The Torah tells us that living by a more sanctified standard of behavior is the mechanism which creates that Godly quality. It elevates us. It engenders a sense of the sacred in our orientation to the Torah too. So the verse instructs us to exhibit conduct which demonstrates an allegiance to Torah which in turn brings our sense of HaShem's Presence into focus. By living a sanctified life, we declare the sanctity of Torah and this becomes a declaration that HaShem is "walking in our midst" as we revere the words of His Torah. As I mentioned last week, this is another illustration of Yisroel v'oraisa v'Kudsha Brich Hu chad hu.

When we are in shul and the Torah is out and we avoid needless talk and remain focused, even between aliyos, we are living by a sanctified standard. We are restraining ourselves and in that sense a scroll on a table feels like a Godly presence in our midst, and our reverence then proclaims "Kvodo malaei olam" - His Sacred Presence is right here among us!

Last week as night fell and brought the first day of Elul, I was called up to be an eid at a wonderful wedding. Great gedolim vied, in earlier generations, to be under a chupa during the month of Elul. There can be a glorious and awe- filled sense of sanctity beneath that canopy at this time of year. Or, one can just go through the motions of being at some chassuna. Choosing to make the action one of sanctity hinges on forming perspective. If I am focused and centered and envisioning my role as a sanctified one, I can still enjoy myself yet I have engendered that place with its due reverence. This is another means of bringing out that sense that we are living by that High standard and by revering the moment, we are beckoning that HaShem walk in our midst.

Good Shabbos. D Fox

A thought on Parshas Shoftim

"...ki ha'adam eitz ha'sadeh..."
"...for is a tree in the field a person...?" (20:19)

The Torah forbids us to wreak wanton destruction even when encroaching upon an enemy city during a siege. We may not cut down, for example, fruit-bearing trees. Our war is not against the environment; it is against our mortal foe. Those trees yield fruit to be eaten, not to be ravaged. Our verse adds four words which we need to interpret:
"ki ha'adam eitz ha'sadeh"

which mean, literally, for the man is the tree of the field. Now, taken literally, it is hard to fathom the meaning of that clause. This is why many (such as Rashi) write that the lead word ki, which can have at least four different usages, is used here to mean "dilma" which in turn means "for could it be?" asked as a question. Hence, Rashi understands the clause to mean "do not think of cutting down that tree! For could it be that a tree is comparable to a person that you should need to destroy it the way you destroy your enemies?"

We can readily understand Rashi's interpretation. According to Rashi, since the word ki here takes on the interrogative form, the verse literally means what we just said it means. It is not an interpretation, but a literal translation now.

However, the Chezkuni prefers to keep the word in its literal literal state. Ki generally means for, or because. The clause says "do not cut down fruit trees because a person is a tree in the field."

Now, I have met some people who are outstanding in their field, but I know very few people who are out, standing in their field. What does the Chezkuni have in mind when he writes that the verse declares that we are tree people?

He explains that we are dependent on fruit. We are dependent on food in general. In fact, we are dependent upon many things, and when a person is dependent upon something, when he needs something, then he is identified with that thing. I will elaborate, because this is a deep thought.

On the battlefield, when a soldier is ravenous and has to eat whatever he can find, and he finds a fruit tree, then he needs that fruit. He is depending upon that tree to feed him. So his fate is merged with the fate of that tree. If it goes down, then down he goes. That is why our verse asserts that this man is that tree in the field.

The same goes for us whenever we depend upon something. I need money. I need a rebbe. I need someone to love me and someone to love. I need my sefarim and on Sukkos I need my arba minim and I grow to depend upon these things, or those people, or such objects in order to get by. It may be a time-limited need or an enduring one, but when I am dependent upon some thing or some one in order to persist at what I seek to do, then I really do merge and identify with it or him or her or them.

This is what doing a mitzva with kavanna creates. I merge with an act. This is what learning li'shma facilitates. Yisroel v'oraisa v'Kudsha Brich Hu chad hu. The synthesis of the person who cleaves to Torah with HaShem's Torah means that he is at one with Torah. This is why we stand up for a Torah scholar just as we stand up for the Torah itself when it passes by us.

I encourage each of us to give this some contemplative thought over Shabbos: what do we find ourselves dependent upon, and how much do we seek to be identified with that object? Are you a fruit tree person? A food person? A money man? A carpool, wristwatch, cassette tape, tobacco, alcohol, telephone, novel or fashionable outfit dependent person?

You are what you depend on.

Hoping that this tree issue does not stump you. Let it branch out in a useful direction! Turn over a new leaf! Get to the root. Have a fruitful Shabbos. D Fox

A Thought on Parshas Re'eh

"...lo tas'un k'chol asher anachnu osim po ha'yom..."
"...you will not worship then in the way we are doing now..." (12:8)

Moshe foretells of the time to come when his people would be free of oppression from the surrounding nations, and would construct a central shrine to HaShem, that would become the makom ha'mikdash. From that time onward we would worship in a set way, not "in the way we are doing now."

The Chezkuni writes that the prohibition on portable sacrificial altars, which resembled the portable desert mishkan, was to commence only once we had respite from all of our enemies. Only at that time would it be possible to erect a stationary central Bais HaMikdash.

The Chezkuni reasons that as long as we had enemies to fight, our people would have been too distracted, and frightened, to congregate in one place for worship. This would have left our lands unguarded and would have isolated us into an easy target for our foes. So, until the land was safe and secure, each person was able to worship "as seemed right to him" (end of our verse.)

It seems to me that there is a difference between subjective praying and collective worship. When an individual faces HaShem in prayer, it is understood and even acceptable that he, or she, may be feeling fear. Prayer is for the anxious. Prayer is for the frightened. The needy, the fearful and the worried individual naturally turns to Heaven with supplication, with sorrowful pleading, and this is what HaShem expects of us. Thus, in the midst of fighting battles against our enemies, there could be formal offerings to HaShem, yet they were to be brought on impermanent, stationary altars, each person as he saw fit. Turning to HaShem was still a subjective and private experience which included a sense of fear and warranted a temporary altar which symbolized that sense of impermanence and transitoriness.

With the removal of our enemies, the rules changed. There was now room for a central shrine, a place where the entire nation could gather during key points in the year, and offer forth communal, nation-wide sacrifices. This was collective worship. It could only happen when the nation had grown out of its fears. Worshiping HaShem as a nation demanded a freedom from fear and worry.

Being afraid of people is antithetical to collective worship in a central temple. To gather together as a nation in order to praise Heaven had to be a declaration of our utter trust in Him. Anything that might distract or worry the nation, such as the presence of an enemy somewhere out there, would detract from the spirit of worship, by definition.

Friends in Israel tell me that the north of our land is largely deserted. People have relocated, temporarily, to towns in the South, further from the border and its hazards. The northern town of Teveria is the home of a branch of Yeshivas Or Elchanan, founded by my great rebbe Rav Simcha Wasserman zt'l. As the yeshiva ended its summer semester, the bulk of its students and the young men of its kollel joined their rosh yeshiva in Jerusalem, where they took up temporary quarters there, guests of Yeshivas Ner Yakov whose American students had returned to their families in the United States for the summer. The morning after Teveria was "emptied," rockets landed at the site of the yeshiva, but only glass window panes were damaged.

Even when the nation lives in collective fear, which can happen only when there is no Bais HaMikdash, there remains in the Torah world a deeper awareness and a higher recognition that despite the understandable fear, there is a security that the Guardian of Israel neither sleeps nor slumbers (Tehillim 121:4). We are not afraid to congregate in a central makom to show our trust in the Makom. Our people have not fled nor wandered aimlessly but have converged near the site of makom ha'mikdash, declaring allegiance to HaShem through delving further into His Torah.

We too cannot sleep nor slumber during this time, "v'eis tzara hi l'Yakov u'mimena yivashe'a" (Yirmiahu 30:7) - "for though it is a time of trouble for Yakov, he will be saved from it."

Let us devote this Shabbos to collective worship, subjective prayer and growth in Torah. Good Shabbos. D Fox