Parshas Va'eschanan - Log Trucks and Vineyards

 ~ Thoughts on The Parsha ~

Parshas Va’eschanan

Log Trucks and Vineyards

By: Daniel Listhaus

שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל ה' אֱלֹהֵינוּ ה' אֶחָד:

“Hear, O Israel: Hashem is our God; Hashem is One.”

 -Va’eschanan 6:4

            The Shema is one of the most fundamental passukim (verses) which children are taught from a very early age. After all, the first paragraph of Shema encompasses the concept of kabalas ol malchus shamayim (literally: accepting the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven).[1] Furthermore the Yerushalmi[2] says that all of the aseres ha’dibros (ten commandments) are hinted to throughout the entirety of Shema. There is no doubt that the Shema is core to Judaism and represents all of B’nei Yisroel purely accepting the Torah and mitzvos under Hashem’s reign. This was in fact the declaration made by the Shevatim to Yaakov avinu stating their absolute commitment to Hashem and the Torah.[3]

            The Medrash[4] states that Kriyas Shema consists of 248[5] words corresponding to the 248 limbs in the human body and Hashem guarantees that one who reads the 248 words of Shema with proper kavana (intention) will receive good health in each of one’s 248 limbs.

            The Rosh[6] cites the Medrash and sources it based on a passuk in Mishlei[7] which states, “Shamor mitzvosai v’chaya” (Keep My mitzvos and you will live). Hashem promises that if you guard His mitzvos, He will guard you. The Rosh continues to explain this concept based on the following moshol (parable) from Rebbe Shimon ben Chalafta: Imagine there are two people. One lives in Yehuda (one part of Eretz Yisroel) and has a vineyard in the Gallile (another part of Eretz Yisroel), and the other lives in the Gallile and has a vineyard in Yehuda. For many years they commuted to work until one day they bumped into each other and realized that with coordination they could work together to live more relaxing lives. If the one who lives in Yehuda could manage the vineyard there for the one living in the Gallile, and vice versa, they could save the daily time and effort of the commuting back and forth.

            This moshol serves as the source for comedian Brian Regan’s comment how he “…never understood log trucks because sometimes you’ll be out on the highway and see two big giant trucks loaded up with logs, and they pass each other on the highway... I mean, if they need logs over there... and they need them over there, you'd think a phone call would save them a whole lot of trouble” However, what is the real purpose of the moshol? Why is the moshol necessary? The concept of Hashem promising that if we guard His mitzvos He will ensure our health is easy enough to comprehend without the example. So why did Rebbe Shimon ben Chalafta feel necessary to provide a moshol for this?

            Furthermore, if one stops to think about it, the moshol itself does not seem to be parallel with the message it is trying to convey. The message is that one who reads each and every word of Shema with proper kavana will be assured good health. The converse would be that one who does not read the Shema with kavana will have no such guarantee. However in the moshol, the alternative to guarding each other’s fields was not that the fields would fall apart, rather that the same exact work would be done albeit through the extra effort of having to commute. Why give an example of people who were already both attending their vineyards? Why not instead give a case of a sort of comparative advantage scenario where one person is better at farming land but his work involves animal care and vice versa and then they offer to switch. Such an example would seemingly align better as painting the picture of someone who was doing something different before and offered to switch to do what’s right and more effective. However with the moshol of Rebbe Shimon ben Chalafta, the people are doing the same activity – maintaining vineyards and it is just a matter of location. How is that parallel to Hashem’s promise that if you keep His Torah then He will secure your health, which implies that the message is being said to someone currently not keeping the Torah and mizvos?

            Perhaps we could understand the moshol and message as follows. The Chovos Halevavos writes that there are different ways to do mitzvos. Unfortunately, we often times do mitzvos because we are used to them and they are part of our culture, but the reality is that as great as that itself is, it remains a relatively low-level of keeping Torah. The next significant level is the chovos ha’levavos – literally the obligation of the heart to feel the mitzvos and become the Torah. Perhaps this is the message that the medrash is really trying to convey and why Rebbe Shimon ben Chalafta felt it necessary to supply the specific moshol he did. The message is that just reciting Shema and mindlessly and routinely keeping the mizvos is not enough. In order to achieve the status of meriting Hashem’s promise, one has to do more than merely care for the proverbial vineyard; one has to care for the vineyard close to home and do it for the “other’s” sake, not for oneself. In other words, one has to keep the Torah and mitzvos by making it a part of one’s personal life – close to home – and do so for Hashem, not out of route or for external reasons. This is also why the halacha stresses that the Shema must be said with kavana. Merely reading the Shema is not a segulah for good health. It is the reading it with kavana and internalizing it that is comparable to guarding Hashem’s vineyard in your home court.

            May Hashem help us keep His Torah and mitzvos for the right reasons so that we could merit and experience a refuah shelaimah of ra’mach eivarim for ourselves and for all of k’lal Yisroel.

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[1] Gemara Berachos

[2] Yerushalmi Berachos cited by Mishna Berurah 61:1:1

[3] See Gemara Pesachim 56a

[4] Brought in Mishna Berurah 61:3:6

[5] Really there are 245 words but the chazzan repeats the last three words on behalf of the congregation to total 248. See Mishna Berurah 61:3:6 regarding how to make up the words if not davening with a minyan.

[6] Devarim 6:4 see also Chizkuni there

[7] Mishlei 4:4

Parshas Mattos-Masei - Sickness or Symptom

~ Thoughts on The Parsha ~

Parshas Mattos-Masei

Sickness or Symptom

By: Daniel Listhaus

וְאֶת מַלְכֵי מִדְיָן הָרְגוּ עַל חַלְלֵיהֶם אֶת אֱוִי וְאֶת רֶקֶם וְאֶת צוּר וְאֶת חוּר וְאֶת רֶבַע חֲמֵשֶׁת מַלְכֵי מִדְיָן וְאֵת בִּלְעָם בֶּן בְּעוֹר הָרְגוּ בֶּחָרֶב

“They killed the kings of Midian along with their slain ones: Evi, and Rekem, and Tzur, and Chur, and Reva, the five kings of Midian; and Billam son of Beor they killed with the sword.”

 -Masei 31:8

            When describing the battle that took place between B’nei Yisroel and Moav, the passuk (verse) singles out Billam and mentions that he was killed by sword. Rashi[1] writes that the passuk does so because when Billam came against B’nei Yisroel he did so with their craft of tefillah (prayer) because Billam knew that B’nei Yisroel triumph only with their mouth through prayer and supplication. Therefore Billam came and seized their craft by cursing them with his mouth. Rashi continues and explains that when B’nei Yisroel fought back against him they too cleverly exchanged their craft for the craft of the other nations[2] and killed him with a sword.

            This Rashi is hard to understand. Rashi makes it sound like it was a good thing that B’nei Yisroel switched their battle strategy to physical fighting instead of davening. How could this be? Certainly there is never a time to fully rely on weapons in battle. After all, as Dovid ha’melech writes in Tehillim[3] “Eileh va’rechev v’eilah ba’susim va’anachnu b’sheim Hashem Elokeinu nazkir” – that while the nations come to battle with their chariots and horses, we come solely with the power of tefillah. We bring weapons to battle in order to be dressed for the part but that is not what we believe wins the battle. If so, why does Rashi emphasize here that killing Billam by sword was an exchange of craft as opposed to merely the way that we were able to easily kill him after davening to Hashem for help in battle?

            The Rosh[4] comments that the sword used to kill Billam was the same sword that Yaakov avinu stuck into the pile of stones that was used as a treaty between him and Lavan. At that time, Yaakov warned Lavan not to cross the line; with the stones and sword symbolizing worthy punishment of being stoned and slayed. Interestingly, Lavan and Billam were close relatives. In fact some maintain they were the same person![5] Billam should have known to stay away and yet he tried for the fourth time to be “arami oveid avi”.[6] He tried with Lavan (or as Lavan) to wipe out Yaakov and the shevatim, he tried in Mitzrayim by advising to Pharaoh to kill all the Jewish babies,[7] he tried again with Balak to curse B’nei Yisroel, and then as a final attempt tried to cause B’nei Yisroel to sin. Billam crossed the line and was therefore killed by that very sword which served as the original warning.[8]

Perhaps this was important just for the middah k’neged middah aspect of it and that is the way Hashem wanted Billam to meet his demise. However, perhaps there is a slightly deeper aspect to why B’nei Yisroel killed Billam with that sword. Going to battle with that sword with the objective to kill Billam put B’nei Yisroel in the right frame of mind to internalize all that Billam had done and the borders he crossed. In other words, of course B’nei Yisroel utilized the ko’ach ha’tefillah (power of prayer); that is always a necessity and indeed the way we win in battle. However it was also necessary for us to understand our enemy and the core of the problem – that Billam was a sonei Yisroel who tried to wipe us out many times. Once we as a nation understood the core issue, that Billam represented the ideologies of Lavan and that he had crossed the line, they were able to have the right kavanos in davening and then take the sword and kill him. The power came from Hashem through tefillah but the mindset was set by the sword. We had to understand the underlying issue before knowing what to daven for and be successful in addressing it.

            The simple, yet profound concept of needing to know underlying causes in order to know how to address them is one which expresses itself in many aspects of life. Just like in order to create a treatment for a disease one has to research and figure out exactly what the core ailment is and not get caught up with the symptoms, so too when solving problems one has to research and analyze the root of the problem at hand without getting caught up in the symptoms, in order to best know how to solve it. Whether interpersonal issues or personal struggles, one must think about the problem he is in, how he got there, and the tools he has at his disposal in order to best understand how it could be addressed.

The Gemara[9] contrasts the destruction of the two Batei Mikdash stating that the first Beis Hamikdash was destroyed because K’lal Yisroel was doing avodah zarrah, sh’fichas damim, and giluiy ar’ayos; whereas during the time of the second Beis Ha’mikdash, K’lal Yisroel was acting appropriately in terms of Torah and mitzvos but there was an underlying sinas chinum (baseless hatred) that was present and caused the destruction of the second Beis Hamikdash.

The Maharal[10] writes that the understanding of this Gemara goes deeper than the surface. He writes that it is not a mere coincidence that the first Beis Ha’mikdash was destroyed from the “big three” and the second was destroyed due to sinas chinum.  After all, not every aveirah is categorized as bad enough to destroy a Beis Ha’mikdash. Is the Gemara just looking for things that were being done incorrectly at the time and saying that that was the reason for the destruction? Had K’lal Yisroel not been keeping Shabbos properly would the Gemara have automatically attributed the destruction to that? There has to be something deeper about why these specific aveiros had the capacity to destroy the Batei Mikdash that the gemara feels comfortable pointing the finger directly and specifically to those aveiros.

           

The Maharal explains as follows. During the first Beis Hamikdash, we merited the privilege of having a Beis Ha’mikdash because we were filled with tahara (purity) and had the Shechina amongst us. Therefore, when we allowed tummah (impurity) to infiltrate, the Shechina could no longer be present and the very foundation of the Beis Ha’mikdash became rotten and was therefore destroyed. However the second Beis Hamikdash was founded on slightly different grounds. The second Beis Hamikdash did not have the same type of kedusha and was lacking in some of the miracles that were present during the time of the first Beis Hamikdash.[11] It was founded on unity within K’lal Yisroel; that is how it was built and that is what it depended on in order to last. If only we would have internalized and understood that the Beis Hamikdash was founded on ahava, then we would have been able to understand that that is what it would take to keep it standing.

This is the lesson we learn from Billam and the sword. Time must be taken to understand causes and roots in order to know how to deal with whatever matters arise. In Billam’s case, our realization that Billam was a real enemy who was overstepping his boundaries by trying to interfere with the continuance of B’nei Yisroel allowed us to properly daven to Hashem and ultimately succeed in killing him with the very sword he swore by. In the times of the Batei Mikdash the contrast of destruction was directly correlated with the proverbial types of legs that the Beis Hamikdash was standing on. Taking the time to properly recognize causes of problems is what allows us to find the right solutions.

This is really the relationship between the month of Av and the month of Elul. During Av we are tasked to reflect and give a state of the union address. Not just where we are at, but more importantly how did we get there. Once we understand what got us to where we are, we are then prepared to move on to the month of Elul to work on addressing the causes of the problems. However if we choose to focus on symptoms instead of causes, we risk getting lost and getting frustrated trying things that won’t work; like throwing darts at a wall and trying to draw the target afterwards.

May Hashem help us have the clarity to find the root causes of struggles that we face in our own lives along with those that we face as a nation as a whole so that we could make progress in the areas of teshuva and ahavas chinum. In this zechus the Beis Hamikdash should be re-built on unbreakable foundations speedily in our days.

           

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[1] Rashi Bamidbar 31:8

[2] Beraishis 27:40

[3] Tehillim 20:8

[4] Bamidbar 31:8

[5] See Rosh, see Gemara Sanhedrim 105b, as well as Sefer Seder Olam

[6] Devarim 26:5

[7] Gemara Sotah 11a

[8] The Rosh also says that the wall that Billam brushed up against with his donkey was actually the very same pile of stones from the treaty between Yaakov and Lavan.

[9] Yoma 9b

[10] Maharal Netzach Yisroel perek 4

[11] Gemara Yoma 21b