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.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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. 

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Pyramid Scheme

I have a suggestion for something President Trump might want to bring up during negotiations with Iran. It was inspired by a new report about what the Egyptian government owes the families of Jews who were forced to leave Egypt during the 20th century. You can read about it here.

Metzora – Mitigating the Miser’s Mindset

Nega’im, “plagues” that consist of certain types of spots of discoloration that appeared on the walls of a house after Klal Yisrael entered their land, signaled tzarus ayin, literally “cramped-eyedness,” what we would call  stinginess. (See Arachin 16a and Maharsha there.)

Thus, the house’s owner is commanded (Vayikra, 14:36) to remove utensils from the house before it is pronounced tamei, spiritually unclean – letting others see things he has that he may have been asked to lend but claimed he didn’t have (and, by Hashem “saving” the vessels from tum’ah, demonstrating the very opposite of tzarus ayin).

The Kli Yakar explains that the words that translate as “[the house] that is his” (Vayikra 14:35), reflect the miser’s mindset, that what he has is really his. What he misses is the truth that what we “own” is really only temporarily in our control, on loan, so to speak, from Hashem.

Puzzling, though, is that Chazal also describe nig’ei batim, the “plagues of houses,” as a blessing, because the Emorim concealed treasures in the walls of their houses during the 40 years the Jews were in the desert, and when a Jew whose home was afflicted would remove the diseased wall stones, he would discover the riches. (Rashi, ibid 14:34, quoting Vayikra Rabbah 17:6).

A reward? For having been stingy? 

No, but perhaps a lesson in the form of  a reward.

Being stingy bespeaks a worldview, as noted above, that misunderstands that what we have is “self-gotten,” not on loan from Above. And that mistaken worldview yields an assumption: that we need to hoard what we have, lest anyone deprive us of it.

The once-tzar-ayin-afflicted homeowner, having had to remove a stone from his wall and belongings from his house, is presumably chastened by the experience. But now he is shown something to fortify his new outlook: a demonstration that wealth can come (and, conversely, go) unexpectedly and suddenly, and that we waste our energy and squander our good will by “cramped-eyedness.” We get what is best for us to have. And it comes from Above, not below.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Shemini – The Abominable Eight’s Missing Member 

The nachash, the snake, makes two appearances in the parsha. Actually, one is better described as a conspicuous non-appearance and the other is one where it is described in words but not by name. And that latter reference includes something unique in the Torah: a graphic representation.

The eight “creeping creatures” – the shemonah sheratzim – convey tum’ah, ritual impurity, when their corpses contact a person, a food, vessel or garment. The particular identities of each of the eight are not clear but what is clear is that the nachash, strangely, despite it being the animal-world representation of evil (as evident from the account of the first snake, in parshas Beraishis), is not among them (Vayikra 29:30).

We do find the snake referenced, though, among creatures forbidden to be consumed (ibid 11:42), in the phrase “all that travel on the belly.” And the letter vav in the Hebrew word for “belly” – gachon – is written enlarged in a sefer Torah. It is also, the mesorah teaches, the Torah’s middle letter. It might be said that the Torah pivots on how we deal with what the snake represents – evil, and its manifestation, the yetzer hora. And a vav resembles a snake.

Paralleling the oddity of the nachash not being one of the “abominable eight” is the fact that, in the following parsha, Tazria, we are taught that, while a white patch of skin on a person is a sign of the tum’ah attending tzora’as, if the patch spreads to cover a person’s entire body, he is considered free of tum’ah (ibid 13:12-13).

How to explain those two seeming paradoxes, a tahor snake and super-tzora’as? 

What occurs is that, while in the world in which we live, evil and tum’ah exist, and we must deal with them, they are ultimately phantasms. When one would expect them to be most ascendant, they dissolve into nothingness, like popped soap bubbles.

In the end, in ultimate reality, ein od mil’vado: “ there is nothing but Him” – divine Goodness. 

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran