A thought on Parshas Ki Savo

"...es divrei haTorah...asher tavo el ha'aretz...""...write the words of this Torah...in order that you go into the Land..." (26:3)

There is a precise order to the contents we include in Birchas HaMazon, the giving of praise and thanks which we say following a formal meal. In Shulchan Aruch (187:3) where some of those laws are presented, we find a flurry of debate with regard to the importance of including mention of Torah in the second blessing of that bentching. The second bracha (the one that ends with "al ha"aretz v'al ha'mazon") is known as the Blessing Over the Land and focuses on HaShem's gift of Eretz Yisroel to His people. What if one omitted mention of Torah in that blessing? Why would he (or even she) have to consider repeating the entire section?

This is an issue of great debate among the commentaries, both early (Rishonim) and more recent (Acharonim). Some even assert that it is a Torah obligation to make mention of the Torah there! The sources cite the writings of the great Spanish rishon known as the Rashba (Rabbeinu Shlomo ben Aderet) and whether he meant that the obligation of bentching is a Torah requirement but that the reference to Torah is a Rabbinic inclusion, or whether he even meant that the actual mention of Torah within this specific blessing is a Torah requirement. There is great debate which I will leave to you to explore.

What I have to offer in better understanding the nature of this requirement of mentioning Torah within the Blessing Over the Land is a point made by Rabbeinu Bachya on our verse:
He understands the connection between writing the Torah (the verse's beginning) and entering Israel is that honoring the Torah before entering the Land serves as a means of signifying that we fully recognize that the only reason that we merit possession of Israel is because we observe the Torah.

When the verse says that we write the Torah "...in order that you go into the Land...", it means that Torah gives us the ability to enter the land, to rule the land and to retain the land. Without Torah, Eretz Yisroel will not be completely and entirely ours.

Rabbeinu Bachya adds that "this is the reason that our sages established mention of Torah within the Blessing Over the Land." In bentching, when we get to the second blessing and say the words "v'al Toras'cha sh'limad'tanu" ("and for the Torah which You taught us"), we allude to the connection between having Torah and getting to have Israel.

It seems clear from Rabbeinu Bachya that referencing Torah within this blessing is a Rabbinic requirement rather than a Torah obligation. It seems worthy to add that Rabbeinu Bachya was a cherished disciple of none other than the Rashba. This may help us better understand the view of the Rashba with regard to this law of bentching: whereas the requirement of mentioning Torah there is itself a Rabbinic one, the concept that being blessed with the gift of Israel hinges on our observing Torah is most definitely a Torah concept, as we see from the wording of our verse.

This may help put some of the halachic conflicts to rest.

Now, if we can just find a way to put the conflicts in, and over, Israel to rest.....through Torah.

Good Shabbos. D Fox

A thought on Parshas Ki Tetze

"...v'chaltza na'alo me'al raglo...""...and she shall remove his shoe from his foot..." (25:9)

The chalitza ritual was performed by a childless widow whose surviving brother in law opted not to take over the role of her late husband. Before a group of judges and others, this bereaved woman would initiate a procedure and declare that such is done to a man who will not continue the build the house of his brother. The core of the ritual was removing the man's shoe, as our verse states. She also spat in his direction.

A midrash observes that we find eleven chukim (statutes) in the Torah, which are defined as commandments or procedures about which the nations, or our own wayward thoughts, might object to or question. The midrash includes shatnes, basar chazir, kilai'im, shor ha'
niskal, egla arufa (see last week's parsha email), tziporei metzora, petter chamor, basar b'chalav, se'ir ha'mishtaleach and para aduma (see email on parshas Chukas from this year.) It also cites rok ha'yevama - the spitting of the widow. It seems curious that the removal of the shoe is not considered among the chukim. This implies that one is able to read some clear meaning into that aspect of the ritual, which would relegate it among the mishpatim class of commandments, those for which we can see some benefit or function (this is not to imply that our interpretations alone suffice to "explain" or validate any mitzva.)

Rabbeinu Bachya ventures an interpretation which might place the shoe removal among the "fathomable" or conceptually tenable commandments: when a man opts to take over the household (and wife) of a deceased brother, he seeks to perpetuate the "life" of his late brother. He is continuing to preserve his name and his estate. In that way, he is allowing the man to "live on." When he refuses to take on this task, however, and does not seek to give the widow children who might carry on a part of that brother's legacy, he has resigned himself to letting that man "remain dead" and for his widow to move on and seek a life for herself.

That decision, choosing not to preserve any element of the brother's life, is choosing death. For a dead brother one must mourn. Mourners remove their shoes. Therefore, the widow enacts the chalitza ritual and symbolizes that "this man has decided to mourn his brother's death rather than allow his name to live on." This is one "meaning" or view of the removing of the shoe, which is enough to also remove it from the chukim category.

We can understand that message. When I was a student of Rav Moshe Feinstein zt'l, I had the good fortune to learn with an inspiring talmid chacham and posek, Rav Baruch Saks shlit'a. He told me that a chassidic widow once brought him the following sheila: her husband had died and left her childless, and her brother in law wanted to go through the chalitza ritual. Meanwhile, the woman had learned that according to kabbala, a chalitza serves as the mystical equivalent of a divorce. It is a way of forever severing contact with the soul of the deceased husband. This widow had decided that she would never remarry. She felt devoted to her late husband. She had heard that should she perform chalitza, her soul would not be reunited, for eternity, with the soul of her husband. She, however, wanted to join him when her time came. Her question was, could she opt out of the mitzva in order to assure that she be with her husband in the higher realm where the souls live on?

I will not go into Rav Moshe's ruling here. Rather, I would encourage each of us to think about our own relationships, our priorities and our commitments. Do we deal with the ones we love in a caring manner "until death do us part" or do we orient towards them with an eye on a higher purpose, seeking to forge a bond between soul and soul that will never end and will keep us united in purpose and in values for eternity?

If the shoe fits, wear it. Good Shabbos. D Fox

A thought on Parshas Shoftim

"...v'arfu sham es ha'egla...""...and they will strike the back of the calf's neck..." (21:4)

Should an unsolved murder occur in the Holy Land, the Torah prescribes an intervention for the community nearest the crime scene. One vivid feature of this ritual is when the elders bring forth a young calf and strike its neck from behind.

Rabbeinu Bachya offers a symbolic inference from this aspect of the egla arufa: Crime is horrible. The Jewish people are not supposed to engage in such heinous misconduct. We are expected to be far above such crimes, and should expect far better things from ourselves.

And especially in the Holy Land of Israel! How could such a person, who lived and thrived on sacred ground, who had access to the Holy Temple and who knew of the presence of the great Sanhedrin, act in a way which seemed oblivious to the presence of the very Shechina? How could a Jewish person perpetrate an attack against another Jew?

A cardinal crime is also a cardinal sin. It expresses a turning away from all that is sacred. It brings about a diminution of our collective sense of the Divine presence. It ends up feeling as if HaShem will distance Himself, kavayachol, from His people. Rather than our sensing that He orients towards us with Divine countenance (Panim which also means "facing us"), we instead feel that He would want to orient towards us "through turning away" (Oref which means "facing away from us".)`

At such a dreadful time, the community feels as if HaShem has indeed faced away from them r'l. This loss of a human life, and its spiritual repercussions, felt wasteful and destructive. It felt pointless. We were thus commanded to capture that mood with an action which was a mitzva and would also help demonstrate and model the waste, the destruction and the loss which the entire community now encountered.

The turning of the calf and the blow to its neck, a seemingly wasteful and destructive act, helped portray through its symbolism the spiritual tone of having lost our connection with HaShem. (Rabbeinu Bachya cites a midrash that once the calf was struck, it would pick up and trot down the road leading to the house of the person who committed the crime. This is how the elders might be able to catch the murderer! The blow to the neck of the calf was not such a destructive waste after all.)

Don't turn your back on me. Maybe. Good Shabbos. D Fox

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A thought on Parshas Re'eh

"...Re'eh anochi nosen lifneichem ha'yom bracha u'klala...""...See, I present you today with a blessing and a curse..." (26:1)

To the English-reading person, there is nothing unusual about the words in this verse. Those who are fortunate to learn Torah in the Sacred Tongue, however, spot a significant shift in the wording. Hebrew uses different words for "singular" and "plural." For example, when addressing an individual, we will say atah (and to a woman at) for "you ." With a group of people, "you" is atem. In our verse, the word "see" (re'eh) is singular but "before you" (lifneichem) is plural. HaShem addresses us first in the singular, telling us to "look," then shifts into the plural, as if no longer addressing this message to an individual but to the entire nation. The shift is quite obvious and demands interpretation.

Rabbeinu Bachya observes that seeing can be done with the physical senses, and can also be done with the mind. The creatures of the physical world are in general limited to the first form of seeing. They see with their eyes. The malachim, the Heavenly entities we know as angels, HaShem's highest creations, see with the clarity of pure minds as they apprehend the majesty and might of the Creator. Meanwhile, down here on earth, we human beings are urged to move past our corporeal senses and limitations. We are urged to look at the world and universe with our higher intellect through clarity of spirit. That way, we can transcend beyond the restricted "seeing" of the eyes and draw closer to seeing more and more of the Higher realm, its complexity, and it purpose.

When mortal man encounters the notion of reward and punishment, of bracha and of klalla, of din (justice) and rachamim (mercy), at most and at best he or she will respond with fear and caution, aware in a limited manner that we must watch our step in functioning before HaShem. Those few individuals who devote their lives to transcendence, to moving beyond and looking past the concrete and the mundane so that they might peer deeper into the mystery and the majesty of creation, are able to see in that higher manner. They can see through the mind's eye, with the greater clarity of the spiritually inclined intellect.

The verse, thus, begins by addressing the select few, for what HaShem wants is that the Jewish people truly "see." This is hinted in the verse's use of the singular in commanding us to "see." The reality is that most people do not get that clarity. They only see with their eyes. That is not what is important here. They will not really be able to "see" the expanse which awaits them because they will focus on "the blessing and the curse." This will, of course, help them attain a level of fear, but it will not let them achieve a level of awe and wonder. The latter part of the verse is for the multitude, and is written in plural to the nation.

Each of us and all of us confront this challenge throughout life. We have an encounter or an experience and we can take it at what we believe to be its face value, or we can try to peer past the present, beyond the context and strive to apprehend its broader significance. It is said that the Brisker Rav, Rabbi Yitzchak Ze'ev Soloveitchik, once lamented that when his great father, Rav Chaim, would hear of an event somewhere in the world, he could unravel and determine its meaning and ramification for world history as it would unfold over the next hundred years! "I, on the other hand", he bemoaned, "am only able to figure out an events ramification for the next few years...."

We can learn to look, to see, to perceive, to apprehend, to observe, to attend...

May HaShem help us learn to see beyond the moment and to look ahead. Good Shabbos. D Fox

A Thought on Parshas Ekev

"...pach'dechem u'morachem yiten HaShem Elokeichem...""...terror and fear of you HaShem will cause..." (11:25)

HaShem promises His people that when we follow His ways, we need not, and must not, have fear of the nations around us. Just as we are bidden to fear HaShem, so are we commanded not to fear people. This is the broad meaning of our reassuring verse: the rest of the world will recognize that we are HaShem's people, and they will back off, wary of challenging the Kingdom of Heaven.

Rabbeinu Bachya adds to this: maintaining a steadfast faith, a fear of Heaven, can be the antidote for any decrees or threats awaiting a Jewish person. HaShem protects and saves those who fear Him and who place their reverent trust in Him. We know this.

In turn, one who fears other people depletes his capacity to feel yiras Shomayim. When his anxiety is diverted into worrying about what other people might do to harm him, he diverts his focus from the truth, and limits his awareness of HaShem's ultimate majesty. This distances him from HaShem which means that he has diminished his relationship and connection with Above. That disconnection can result in him stumbling and having troubles r'l which in essence had not been decreed before. Thus, yiras Shomayim can yield unexpected bounty. Lack of yiras Shomayim because of misplaced fear of people can lead to unprecedented personal problems which were not decreed against the person but are brought on by his lapse in Divine focus.

Last Sunday, I had an early flight back from Israel. I had to leave by six in the morning which meant I had to daven as early as possible. This gave me an opportunity, of course, to go the Zaharei Chama schul where Rav Aryeh Levine's zt'l grandson is the rabbi. I have spoken in earlier parsha emails about this spot near the Makor Baruch section of Jerusalem where I like to stay. We put on tefillin at 5:20 so as to begin Shema by 5:40. I was able to pray with a tzibur before rushing to my taxi.

We had liked a driver we had met "by chance" earlier in the week. He was a gentle Sefardic man who agreed to meet us at six o'clock. In the cab, he told us that he never misses wearing tefillin and planned to pray after dropping us off. As we rolled down the highway toward Tel Aviv, he shared an experience with us. He told of how he had been a tense man in his youth, obsessing and worried about many problems which came his way. One day, he picked up an elderly rabbi and as the older man got out of the taxi, he turned to him and said that HaShem decrees the events which will befall a person. What a person does with those events is up to the person, and not part of the decree. "If I lose money or break something, that is a punitive challenge from HaShem. If I suffer with worry and fear and anger and depression, that is a punishment I am giving myself. I am going beyond the limits of the actual decree. My suffering is self-inflicted, and is probably not what HaShem wants me to take from the challenge." He closed by saying that since then, he has become accepting and composed in the face of challenge, working on what HaShem expects of him rather than dwelling on his disappointment relative to what he had expected from HaShem.

May the Seven Weeks of Consolation bring us closer to yiras Shomayim. Good Shabbos. D Fox