Category Archives: PARSHA

Chukas – The Marrow of the Matter

Our ancestors were divinely commanded to gaze at a copper representation of a snake. In order to end a plague of snakebites born of their complaint about the mon (Bamidbar 21:8). Chazal explain that it wasn’t the sight of the copper snake per se that effected the plague’s end.

Rather “when the Jewish people turned their eyes upward and subjected their hearts to their Father in Heaven, they were healed, but if not, they were necrotized [by the venom]” (Rosh Hashana 29a).

So, the obvious question: Why not eliminate the middlesnake and just look directly heavenward?

Rabbeinu Bachya calls attention to the word used to introduce the (real) snakes in the account: hanechashim (Bamidbar 21:6). Not “snakes” but “the snakes.” The definite article, he says, is a reference to the poisonous reptiles that, are described (Devarim 8:15) as having been ever-present in the desert our ancestors wandered.

Rav Samson Rafael Hirsch expands on that observation, explaining that gazing at the copper snake was meant to sensitize the people to the ubiquity of snakes around them – and to the realization that when the snakes hadn’t harmed them, it was because of Hashem’s protection.

That puts me in mind of a pasuk (Tehillim 35:10) included at the end of Nishmas, the beautiful expression of gratitude recited at the end of psukei dizimra on Shabbos. “Kol atzmosai… matzil ani meichazak mimenu” – “All my bones shall say, ‘Hashem, who is like You? You save the poor from one stronger than him, the poor and needy from the one who would rob him’.”

My bones?

Parts of Nishmas describe our bodies’ figuratively praising Hashem. But those parts can be read, too, as asserting that our bodies’ functionings are themselves praises of Hashem.

Our physical bodies are threatened by scores of dangerous invaders, held off, if we are healthy, by an unbelievably complex biological network we call the immune system.

An astounding menagerie of antibodies is produced by the white blood cells in our bodies, each product designed by our Designer to disable a specific bacteria, virus or toxin, thousands of which constantly seek to infect our bodies.

Those protectors, as it happens, are born in the marrow of our bones.

Korach – Schism and Stereopsis

His “eye,” not his “eyes.”

That’s what Chazal point to with regard to how a pikei’ach (perceptive person) like Korach could undertake a shtus, a “stupidity” like fomenting a rebellion against Moshe Rabbeinu.

The words of the Midrash, brought by Rashi (Bamidbar 16:7), are: “His eye misled him. He saw [in a prophecy] that Shmuel would be one of his descendants” and assumed that he, Korach, was thereby licensed to foment a rebellion.

Why his “eye,” in the singular?

The fact that we have a pair of eyes allows, of course, for a special sort of vision, stereopsis, which gives us the ability to perceive depth and three-dimensional structures by combining the slightly different images received by each eye. That facilitates our ability to judge the relative distance of objects and perceive depth.

Korach was focused on only one aspect, his genealogical legacy, his future descendant Shmuel. He didn’t employ the full complement of vision, and remained blind to the larger issue of what he was actually about to do – foster a schismatic rebellion against Hashem’s chosen messenger. He saw a picture, yes, just not the big picture.

Chazal famously teach that “falsehood has no feet” – that the word sheker teeters on the single “foot” of the letter kuf – while truth is stable, as each letter of the word emes is firmly grounded (Shabbos 104a).

But that same Gemara also notes that the letters of sheker are adjacent to one another in the alphabet, while those of emes span the entire aleph-beis. That fact, Chazal say, teaches us that falsehood is easily found, but truth, only with great difficulty.

I understand that to mean that one can be misled by focusing on only one aspect of something. Perceiving the truth, by contrast, requires spanning the entirety of what is seen, the “big picture,” complete with stereopsis. It’s a lesson much needed in our polarized, black-and-white, one-dimensional times.

Korach — Schism and Stereopsis

His “eye,” not his “eyes.”

That’s what Chazal point to with regard to how a pikei’ach (perceptive person) like Korach could undertake a shtus, a “stupidity” like fomenting a rebellion against Moshe Rabbeinu.

Why his “eye,” in the singular?

Shelach – Meaningful Metaphor

In their declaration that the conquest of Cna’an will proceed successfully, Yehoshua and Calev employ an odd metaphor: The idolatrous residents of the land, they say, will be vanquished because “they are our bread” (Bamidbar 14:9).

What has always occurred to me about their use of that word is that a daily factor in the lives of Klal Yisrael in the desert was a “bread” of sorts: the mon. It is called bread in several places, including Shemos 16:4 and Tehillim 78:25.

The mon, of course, was an unprecedented and undeniable miracle, a heavenly intervention that nourished Klal Yisrael. So perhaps the metaphor was meant to reassure the people that, despite the fears expressed by the meraglim about the fearsome occupants of the land, the conquest would proceed apace, just as miraculously as the food that had fallen each day to nourish them.

It’s a truistic idea but one worth focusing on these days: Wars are fought with manpower and weapons, but are won only with the help of Hashem.

The Chasam Sofer, I discovered, also saw the mon as the metaphor’s reference, and he expounds on it more deeply (echoing the Ohr Hachaim). The produce of the Holy Land, he explains, contains not only a physicality but also a special spiritual element. Ahead of the invasion of Can’an, that element was divinely withdrawn from the land’s produce and transformed into the mon. It was that embodiment of holiness that sustained Klal Yisrael over all the desert years.

And its removal from Cna’an’s produce left only the raw physicality of the land’s produce — mere “bread,” devoid of its erstwhile holiness — for the Cna’anim. And that, in turn, left them entirely vulnerable to being vanquished.

May we merit that all who threaten Klal Yisrael meet the same defeat.

Beha’aloscha – Class-ic Complaint

Rashi, quoting the Gemara, understands the nation’s “weeping about its family” (Bamidbar 11:10) as referring to ‘matters of family’ – to the fact that relatives who were once permitted to be joined in marriage were now, post-Sinai, forbidden to marry.

Rav Yonason Eybeschutz has an alternate, and very pith, take on the phrase.

He asserts that wealthy people don’t wear expensive clothes and eat expensive meals primarily because of the enjoyment they may provide but, rather, because of the status they convey. (Think of Lamborghinis that need repairs more often than Hondas, or Rolexes that keep time no better than drugstore watches.) Put most bluntly, members of the upper class want to show that they are different (implying, presumably, better) than the hoi polloi. “That,” writes Rav Eybeschutz, in his sefer Ahavas Yonasan, “is the nature of man.”

The mon, though, served as a great equalizer, allowing the poorest person to taste whatever delicacy he imagined as he consumed it.

Taking the word for “the nation” as referring to the upper class of the midbar-society; and “family” to mean social stratum, he sees the complaint of the wealthy as being about the erasure of the possibility to adopt status symbols. The removal of that option deeply pains those accustomed to believe their worth can be telegraphed by what they wear or eat (or drive).

Naso – Chinuch 101

Haftaros always have some connection to something in the parsha, but few are as explicitly related to what was read from the Torah as the haftarah of parshas Naso, which haftarah , like part of the parsha itself, deals with a nazir.

That nazir, of course, was Shimshon, whose mother, Tzalphonis, was visited by an angel predicting his birth and establishing that he was to be a protector of his people – and a nazir, from birth and beyond. She, too, she was instructed, was to refrain from ingesting anything forbidden to a nazir.

When she related the details of the visitation to her husband Manoach, he beseeches Hashem to offer instructions for raising the child they will be having.

But, wonders Rav Shimon Schwab, the laws of nazir were well known and established. What was Manoach asking for?

What’s more, when his prayer was answered and the angel appeared again, the heavenly visitor seems to add nothing to his previous instructions. “The woman,” he says, “must abstain from all the things against which I warned her… She must observe all that I commanded her.”

Rav Schwab suggests something novel. He sees Manoach’s request as having been about the challenge of a non-nazir like himself raising a nazir. It was a request, so to speak, for chinuch advice.

And, Rav Schwab, points out, the Hebrew word for “she must observe,” tishmor, can also mean, when spoken directly to a man, “you must observe,” indicating that not only should Manoach’s wife heed the laws of nezirus, but so should he. The only way to successfully raise a nazir, in other words, is to be a nazir.

Thus, asserts Rav Schwab, the chinuch lesson delivered by the angel was one that is a lesson to all Jews for all generations: If we don’t ourselves model what we want our children to become, we cannot expect them to develop as we wish. What children see in their parents is the single most important part of their upbringing.

Bamidbar – No Date, No Place

We read parshas Bamidbar (Bimidbar, if one wants to be didactic) on the Shabbos before Shavuos. The meaning of that juxtaposition might lie in the word by which the parsha is known ((however one chooses to render it).

Rav Yisrael Salanter saw a trenchant message in the fact that Shavuos, unlike Pesach and Sukkos, has no set date. Tied as it is to the beginning of the Omer count on the second day of Pesach, its 50th day – at least when Rosh Chodesh was dependent on the sighting of new moons – could have fallen on the 5th, 6th or 7th day of Sivan.

Rav Yisrael explained that since we know that Shavuos is zman mattan Toraseinu (note zman, not yom, as the holiday may not fall on the date of Sivan on which the Torah was actually given), its lack of an identifiable set day telegraphs the idea that Torah is unbounded by time. On a simple level, that means it applies fully in every “modern” era; on a deeper one, that it transcends time itself, as per Chazal’s statement that it was the blueprint of the universe that Hashem, so to speak, used to create creation.

A parallel message, about space, may inhere in the desert, a “no-place,” being the locus of Mattan Torah. Here, too, there is a simple idea, that Torah is not bound to any special place but rather applies in all places; and a deeper one, that it transcends space itself, which, like time, is in the end something created.

That time and space are not “givens” of the universe, but, rather part of what was created at brias ha’olam (aka the “Big Bang) is a commonplace today, although it wasn’t always so, as philosophers maintained over centuries that there was never any “beginning” to the universe and that space is a fixed, eternal grid.

Behar – A Saying That Says Much

There are a number of common English aphorisms that parallel (or are sourced in) Talmudic statements.

What Chazal said in Avos (1:15), “Say little and do much” echoes in “Actions speak louder than words.”

As does “Don’t judge a book by its cover” in “Do not look at the container, but at what is in it” (Avos 4:20).

What the Gemara teaches (Bava Metzia 71a) with “The poor of one’s own town come first” is conveyed in “Charity begins at home.”

“No pain, no gain” is rendered by Ben Hei Hei as “According to the effort is the reward” (Avos 5:26).

Sometimes, though, a subtle difference in how an idea is rendered by Chazal carries meaning.

Like the “Golden Rule,” which, in popular usage is rendered “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Hillel’s version (Shabbos 31a) is, of course, “What is hateful to you do not do to your fellow.” While the popular version may seem, at first glance, nicer, Hillel’s is without question more demanding, and more meaningful.

In parshas Behar (Vayikra 25:35), we read: “If your brother becomes poor… strengthen him.” The word for “strengthen” – vihechezakta – can also mean “take hold of.” Which leads the Midrash (Sifra, Behar), quoted by Rashi, to convey that one should try to intervene before a crisis becomes serious. When a person has already fallen into poverty, “it will be difficult to give him a lift, but rather uphold him from the very sign of the failure of his means.” The mashal offered is of a donkey whose load is tottering. It can be held in place by one person, but if it has already fallen, it will take many people to right the donkey and replace its load.

“A stitch in time saves nine” or “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” are how an uninformed-by-Torah pundit might put the idea.

What makes the Midrash’s meaning more meaningful, though, is that it is in the context not of saving oneself time or work or trouble but, rather, of how best to help another person.

Emor – When Shabbos Arrives on Tuesday

The term “afilu biShabbos shel chol” – “even on a weekday Shabbos” – is from the Zohar (Korach 179), as the end of the statement beginning: “The Shechinah has never left Yisroel on Shabbosos and Yomim Tovim…”

“Weekday Shabbos”? It has been suggested, by the Parshas Derachim (Rav Yehudah ben Rav Shmuel Rosanes) in the name of his father that the strange statement refers to the situation presented by the Gemara (Shabbos 69b) of a Jew who is lost in the desert, and who has lost track of the day of the week. There, Rav Chiya bar Rav maintains that the person should observe the next day as Shabbos and then count six days before again observing Shabbos. Rav Huna argues that he should first count six days and only then observe the first Shabbos.

In both opinions, though, a weekday could (and most likely would) end up “being” Shabbos.

The Chasam Sofer sees a hint to that approach in the fact that, in our parsha (Vayikra 23:2-3), Shabbos is counted along with holidays – as part of the mikraei kodesh (“those declared as holy”), which refers to the fact that Jewish holidays are “declared,” dependent on when the beis din announces each new month. Thus they are dependent on Jews’ actions, unlike Shabbos, which is set from the creation week and impervious to human intervention.

Except, that is, in the case of the desert wanderer. In that case, the wanderer indeed declares when Shabbos is. And the Shechinah descends on his “weekday Shabbos.”

Evidence, it would seem, of the profound power the human realm wields, able as it is to “summon” the Shechinah to descend.

Hashem has made us partners in Creation. A timely thought as Shavuos (during the month of Sivan, whose mazal is te’umim) approaches.

Acharei Mos – When Life is the Equal of Death

Faced with a forced choice between continuing to live or committing one of three sins – idolatry, murder and arayos, forbidden sexual relations – a Jew is commanded to forfeit his life.

In the case of any other sin (unless the coercion is part of an effort aimed at destroying Jewish practice), the forbidden act should be committed and one’s life preserved.

That law is derived from the phrase vichai bahem, “and live through them” (Vayikra 18:5).

The Chasam Sofer notes the incongruity of the fact that vichai bahem is written immediately before a list of arayos, one of the three cardinal sins – not in the context of sins where life trumps forbiddance. And he writes that “it would be a mitzvah” to explain that oddity.

One approach to address the incongruity is offered by the Baal HaTurim. He sees an unwritten but implied “however” between vichai bahem and what follows. So that the Torah is saying, in effect, life is paramount except for cases like the following.

A message, though, may lie in the juxtaposition itself without adding anything: that living al kiddush Hashem – “for glorification of Hashem” – is as valued as dying for it. When one is commanded to commit a sin in order to preserve his life, that, too, is a kiddush Hashem. Because in such cases, one’s choosing to live is Hashem’s will.

What also might be implied is what the Rambam writes (Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah 5:11), that the way a person acts in mundane matters can constitute either a kiddush Hashem or its opposite. If one’s everyday actions show integrity and propriety, that constitutes a glorification of Hashem’s name.

And so, perhaps, writing the words teaching us that concern for life in most cases requires the commission of a sin as an “introduction”of sorts to the imperative to die in certain other cases may be the way the Torah means to impress something upon us: the essential equality between dying al kiddush Hashem and living by it.

Rabbi Avi Shafran

Reflections on Jews, Judaism, Media and Life