Parshas Chukas - Real Responsibility

Thoughts on the Parsha
Parshas Chukas

Real Responsibility

By: Daniel Listhaus

וַיֹּאמֶר ה' אֶל משֶׁה עֲשֵׂה לְךָ שָׂרָף וְשִׂים אֹתוֹ עַל נֵס וְהָיָה כָּל הַנָּשׁוּךְ וְרָאָה אֹתוֹ וָחָי: וַיַּעַשׂ משֶׁה נְחַשׁ נְחשֶׁת וַיְשִׂמֵהוּ עַל הַנֵּס וְהָיָה אִם נָשַׁךְ הַנָּחָשׁ אֶת אִישׁ וְהִבִּיט אֶל נְחַשׁ הַנְּחשֶׁת וָחָי

“Hashem said to Moshe, 'Make yourself a burning one and place it on a pole, and it will be that anyone who had been bitten will look at it and live. Moshe made a snake of copper and placed it on the pole; so it was that if the snake bit a man, he would stare at the copper snake and live.”

-Chukas 21:8-9

As hard as it is to believe, we read through this week's parsha only to find that the B'nei Yisroel once again complained about their experience in the midbar (desert), saying that they remembered their time in Mitzrayim being more pleasureful than their current situation. In response to this, Hashem sent burning nechashim (snakes) to bite those who had complained. This was followed by the B'nei Yisroel doing teshuva (repentance) and approaching Moshe to ask him to please daven on their behalf. Moshe did so and Hashem gave him instructions to build a snake on a pole. Anyone who looked up at the model would be cured from his snake bite.¹

Rashi² is bothered that the passuk (verse) specifies that the snake that Moshe built was made of copper, yet nowhere in the passukim does it say that Hashem commanded him to make it of any specific material. Rashi writes that Moshe thought to himself that because the word for snake (nachash) is the same as the root for copper (ne'cho'shes), he realized that that was the material Hashem expected him to use with which to construct the snake.³

On the surface this whole story passes under the radar. After all, it sounds like yet another classic chapter of the B'nei Yisroel in the midbar (desert). They complained, they got punished, Moshe davened to Hashem, and the day was saved. However, there is an extremely important fact here which gets overlooked but is very worthwhile to focus on and think about.

In the time-line of this parsha, immediately prior to this episode with the copper snake, was the story of Moshe hitting the rock. Something that Moshe and Aharon did at that particular point was considered a cheit (sin), and because of their tremendous closeness with Hashem, much was expected of them and the repercussions were heartbreaking. It was decreed that Moshe and Aharon were to die in the midbar and not be allowed to enter Eretz Yisroel. It is impossible to fathom what it must have felt like for Moshe rabbeinu. After taking B'nei Yisroel out of Mitzrayim, receiving the Torah, and always being there to save the day for B'nei Yisroel, Hashem told him that he will not be able to enter Eretz Yisroel. All his life's work had been to prepare B'nei Yisroel to fulfill the mitzvos in Eretz Yisroel, and all of the sudden, because of what was seemingly a small misunderstanding, Hashem took away Moshe's life-long dream.

Most people after having gone through such a traumatic time would be completely beside themselves. Whether the response would be suicide, ultimate depression, or rebellion, one thing is for sure – chances would be pretty slim that a person in such a circumstance would ever have the same relationship with the one who took away his life's dream from him. Yet, not only did Moshe rabbeinu continue his role of leader over the very people who he could have easily blamed as being the primary cause of him losing his dream of entering Eretz Yisroel, and not only did he even daven on their behalf, he even maintained the same exact relationship with Hashem that he was able to understand clearly the material that Hashem intended he use for the nachash without it having to be explicitly communicated.

It is quite interesting how different the roles of a Jewish religious is from a regular government politician. When it comes to the political headlines, they either read that someone is running for some government position, or that a certain politician is shirking his responsibility. Yet, in Chumash and Tanach we find that the righteous religious leaders never ran for office, but rather ran away from office⁴, as the Mishna⁵ says, “Despise lordliness and stay away from government”. And when it comes to responsibility, even after having all his dreams swept away for a minor mistake because of a stressful moment, Moshe rabbeinu's responsibility did not waiver one iota. His responsibility of taking care of B'nei Yisroel was completely unaffected, and his close relationship with Hashem, with his deep understating of what Hashem wanted of him, remained fully in tact.

Although this precise level of responsibility may be unrealistic to be expected of us, the concept is definitely something that we must strive for to the best of our ability. We learn from Moshe that anger or a distance in relationship from Hashem is completely improper no matter what happens. We must keep in mind that beyond the goals we set for ourselves, and more important than anything that could happen to us, is the absolute necessity to remain unwavering from our emunah (trust) and bitachon (faith) in Hashem.

1See Rashi Bamidbar 21:8 who brings from the gemara Rosh Hashanah 29a that obviously a copper snake has no power to heal. Rather, the intent was that the B'nei Yisroel would look up to the sky to Hashem and subject their heart to Him.

2Bamidbar 21:9

3See Ramban 21:9 who offers a possible explanation as to what Moshe's exact calculation was.

4Moshe rabbeinu was very reluctant to accepting the position of manhig (leader) kk'lal Yisroel. Also, Shaul HaMelech was very reluctant to accept becoming king.

5Pirkei Avos 1:10

Parshas Korach - Favors are Easily Forgotten

Thoughts on The Parsha

Parshas Korach

Favors are Easily Forgotten

By: Daniel Listhaus

וַיִּקַּח קֹרַח בֶּן יִצְהָר בֶּן קְהָת בֶּן לֵוִי וְדָתָן וַאֲבִירָם בְּנֵי אֱלִיאָב וְאוֹן בֶּן פֶּלֶת בְּנֵי רְאוּבֵן

“Korach son of Yitzhar son of Kehas son of Levi separated himself, with Dasan and Aviram, sons of Eliav, and On son of Peles, sons of Reuvein.”

-Korach 16:1

Rashi¹ explains that what instigated Korach's argument with Moshe was the fact that he was jealous because Moshe appointed Elitzaphan ben Uziel as a nassi (literally: prince) over the B'nei Kehas.² Korach based his argument on what he assumed was logical. He assessed the situation and realized that Levi's son Kehas had four sons: Amram, Yitzhar, Chevron, and Uziel. Amram's two sons – Moshe and Aharon – assumed the two top positions of B'nei Yisroel. Moshe rabbeinu was the leader of the entire nation, and Aharon HaKohen was the Kohen Gadol. When Hashem commanded for the appointing of the nassi'im, Korach thought to himself that it was only fair that he assume the position. After all, he was the son of Yitzhar, the second-to-oldest son of Kehas. However, Moshe appointed Uziel's son. This disturbed Korach immensely and he decided to put together a support team and then went to argue head on with Moshe rabbeinu and tried to establish that just as this decision of Moshe made no sense, so too everything else Moshe said made no sense.

There are two basic questions that come to mind when reading the story of Korach. First, why did he wait this long to raise a stink? Elitzaphan was appointed nassi in Parshas Bamidbar.³ What took so long for Korach's jealousy to leak through? Why did he not immediately challenge Moshe?

Second, what was Korach's master plan exactly? Everyone loved Moshe rabbeinu. He was the messenger who took them out of Mitzrayim, split the Yam Suf, received the Torah directly from Har Sinai, and led B'nei Yisroel though the midbar (desert). Why was Korach so confident that striking Moshe at this particular point would not be met with an opposing force strongly backing up Moshe? After all, even when it came to a real nevuah (prophecy) when Yehoshua said when he found out the Eldad and Medad were prophesying that Moshe would die and Yehoshua would be the one to lead B'nei Yisroel into Eretz Yisroel, Yehoshua begged Moshe to throw them in jail for saying such a thing. Certainly everyone loved Moshe, and Moshe had Hashem and the majority of B'nei Yisroel who were always there to side with him. So how was Korach so confident that he would somehow win any argument with Moshe?

The Ramban⁴ writes that indeed Korach's timing was strategically intentional. Until this point it was clear to the entire B'nei Yisroel that Moshe was always there to save the day. Even by the eigel hazahav (golden calf) – unarguably the greatest sin of all time by our nation – Moshe somehow managed through the power of his tefillos (prayers) to abate Hashem's anger and threats to wipe out B'nei Yisroel. Very few people died from that event and the other times Hashem got upset at the B'nei Yisroel. This was something that was recognized by everyone to the point that if anyone would even think of attempting to do anything to hurt Moshe, such a person would have been immediately stoned by Moshe's followers – the B'nei Yisroel. However, Korach noticed a change that subconsciously had an affect on the nation as a whole.

When the B'nei Yisroel entered Midbar Paran and complained about the manna, Hashem responded with sending a fire of fury, which killed many people. Also, after the tragedy of the meraglim (spies), Moshe did not seem to make an effort to daven on their behalf and try to be mevatel (cancel) the gezairah (decree) of the death to all of the nassi'im who sinned and the gezairah of B'nei Yisroel living at the time to be unworthy of entering Eretz Yisroel and needing to die in the midbar.

Although it is in fact difficult to understand why Moshe's role as manhig k'lal Yisroel did not include davening at these particular points of time, or at least not having as great of an impact, it is clear that Moshe did what he was supposed to do. These events, and what seemed as Moshe's failure to stand up for them, caused the B'nei Yisroel to have some negative feelings towards Moshe rabbeinu. Korach sensed this slight change in attitude of the B'nei Yisroel toward Moshe and took advantage of the opportunity, which only fully presented itself at this point in time after the episode with the meraglim.

As we read through everything that Moshe did for the B'nei Yisroel this Ramban seems outlandish. Could it be that there was a real change in B'nei Yisroel's attitude based on the fact that more people had died during the complaining about the manna and the story of the meraglim? Moshe's tefillos to Hashem during times that Hashem wanted to wipe out the whole nation should have been viewed as a tremendous favor for an undeserving nation, not something that they should now have forever to hold over his head as a standard to expect. Yet that is precisely the feeling that the B'nei Yisroel felt. They got used to Moshe always being there to save the day, and began to expect nothing less. They subconsciously began viewing Moshe's tefillos as a right instead of a privilege. Therefore, when their expectations were not achieved, they harbored negative feelings against Moshe. Korach sensed this change in attitude and took immediate advantage.

The truth is that this is something most of us do on a daily basis. As Yehudim (Jews), our mission statement is to admit to our dependence on Hashem and realize that everything about us is a pure gift from Hashem. The Orchos Tzadikkim⁵ stresses this in the first three, of thirty, items he says is an obligation to think about twice daily. He writes that we must remember that Hashem created us from nothing; and even though He has no debt to us that He needs to provide for us anything, He created us as man – the top of the food chain and has kept us alive since the day we were born. Additionally, Hashem created us with all our body parts and with good mental health. All of this is purely out of Hashem's infinite kindness and we are accordingly indebted to Him and have the obligation to thank Him constantly.

Although this should make sense, it is somehow still hard to not take out our anger on Hashem when people get hurt or things do not go as smoothly as we would like to expect. Each morning we read the berachos (blessings) acknowledging the fact that Hashem opens our eyes to be able to see, gives us the ability to sit and stand, provides us with strength, and wakes us up every morning allowing our neshamos (souls) to return to our bodies. However, we must realize that these are not merely items on a checklist of things we expected from Hashem, nor are these our constitutional rights for living in this world. Rather, they are privileges which not everyone is privy to.

This mentality of thinking things are owed to us just because we expect it to be that way is exactly the fundamental force behind jealousy and was what propelled the whole story of Korach to begin with. Korach analyzed the family of Kehas and the positions available and decided that by right he should have been appointed as nassi.

May Hashem help us with our emunah so that we can better realize that because our expectations are not our rights, and that in fact everything we have is truly a privilege, we have an obligation to be forever thankful.

1Bamidbar 16:1

2Obviously this was not Moshe's personal preference or decision, rather Hashem told him who to appoint, as Rashi writes.

3Bamidbar 3:30

4Bamidbar 16:1

5Orchos Tzadikkim: Sha'ar Hazechira 

Photo Credit: http://fletcherclan.blogspot.com/2012/07/yelling-or-watering.html

Parshas Shelach - What's the Real Story?

Thoughts on the parsha
Parshas Shelach

What's the Real Story?

By: Daniel Listhaus

וַיֹּצִיאוּ דִּבַּת הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר תָּרוּ אֹתָהּ אֶל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לֵאמֹר הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר עָבַרְנוּ בָהּ לָתוּר אֹתָהּ אֶרֶץ אֹכֶלֶת יוֹשְׁבֶיהָ הִוא וְכָל הָעָם אֲשֶׁר רָאִינוּ בְתוֹכָהּ אַנְשֵׁי מִדּוֹת

“They brought forth to the B'nei Yisroel an evil report on the land that they had spied out, saying, 'The land through which we have passed, to spy it out, is a land which devours its inhabitants! All the people that we saw in it were men of measures!'”

-Shelach 13:32

Rashi¹ tells us that the B'nei Yisroel approached Moshe and said that they wanted to send spies out before them to check out Eretz Yisroel. Hashem was obviously not happy with this request because if He said that He would bring us to a great land, what further need is there to check it out? Nontheless, Hashem did not stop Moshe from sending the meraglim (spies).²

The Torah describes that Eretz Yisroel was a land filled with beracha (blessings). Eight meraglim were needed to carry one cluster of grapes!³ Additionally, even the people who lived in the land were giants. Also, as promised, it was indeed a land of flowing milk and honey, a land bursting with potential anxiously awaiting B'nei Yisroel's arrival. However, when the meraglim returned from their mission, they focused on all the negatives that they saw during their visit in Eretz Yisroel.

If one pays attention to the parts of the meraglim's reports, the report seems to consist of two basic complaints. The first is that they found everything in Eretz Yisroel to be humongous. As they mentioned, this was problematic for two reasons – one, that gigantic people would surely be impossible to conquer and, two, that huge fortified cities would definitely prove to be impenetrable. The second argument of the meraglim was that Eretz Yisroel was a land that devours its own inhabitants.

Let us think through these two complaints one at a time. The first one is hard for us to imagine why this would even be a problem that would register on the B'nei Yisroel's radar. After all, the B'nei Yisroel were not foreign to experiencing tremendous miracles and overcoming impossible obstacles. No slave ever escaped Mitzrayim, yet the entire Jewish population was rescued. They crossed the Yam Suf which split in front of their eyes. They were supported for months in the desert where they were not affected by the elements at all. Their clothes did not wear out, they always had food to eat and water to drink, and walked in the constant shade of the annanei hakavod (Cloud of Hashem). Yet, the meraglim had the audacity to use this argument and told the people that for some unexplainable reason this time would be different and they would not find the strength to conquer Eretz Yisroel.

The meraglim's error in this part of the report is blatantly obvious, though, when we think about who they were. Although the Torah testifies that they were originally tremendous tzaddikim (righteous people),⁴ which is undoubtedly why they were chosen by Moshe to scout Eretz Yisroel, they were negatively affected by the mission itself, which was instigated by the katnei emunah (those with little trust in Hashem). They were coming from the perspective that even though Hashem had guaranteed a beautiful land to them, that they still must check it out and see if it will indeed be conquerable. As much as their perspective was twisted and misguided, we could at least understand the position of the meraglim who came back complaining about the size of their opponents in Eretz Yisroel and the defense of the cities there, and why they said what they said.

The second aspect of the meraglim's report, however, is much more difficult to understand. They went through Eretz Yisroel and personally witnessed the blessed atmosphere - the fruits were big, and the people were strong and healthy. This information was not something that the meraglim left out, rather, as just mentioned, they used this information to complain how hard they suspected it to be to later conquer Eretz Yisroel. If so, how did they turn around in the same breath and argue that Eretz Yisroel is a land which swallows its inhabitants?

Rashi⁵ writes that indeed while the meraglim were spying in Eretz Yisroel, they passed by many funeral processions. Seeing this they came to the conclusion that Eretz Yisroel was a bad place to live. The meraglim failed to realize, though, that Hashem was killing the Cana'anim in order to distract them from noticing the meraglim. Instead, as the Ramban and S'forno explain, they attributed the rampant deaths to other things.

The S'forno⁶ explains that the meraglim argued that the fact that the people living in Eretz Yisroel were large, strong, and healthy was not because of the good qualities of Eretz Yisroel, but rather just the opposite. They claimed that the air, water, and everything about Eretz Yisroel was all detrimental to people's health and the only reason that there were giants left is because everyone else had died who could not withstand the environment.

The Ramban⁷ explains slightly differently that the meraglim complained that the land of Eretz Yisroel was too good and only those born with exceptional characteristics had the capacity to survive. The meraglim claimed that anyone lacking the extra fitness and strength did not stand a chance in the land of Eretz Yisroel – which favored those with exceptional health.

This was the second category of complaint that the meraglim declared. Either that the explanation as to why there were giants dwelling in Eretz Yisroel was because everyone else had died due to the poor air quality and environment or that the reason was because Eretz Yisroel was so great that only the fittest could survive.

Reading the Torah from an omniscient point of view with an insight as to what was really going on, the flaws of this second argument of the meraglim become obvious as well. Hashem orchestrated the citizens of Eretz Yisroel to die out in order to distract the giants in a natural way so that the spies would be able to complete their mission without any trouble. Yet, the meraglim chose to look at the situation in a twisted way to fit with their mindset. According to the S'forno, they fell into the the trap of the post-hoc fallacy. The post-hoc fallacy refers to one who irrationally sees to juxtaposed events as ones of automatic cause and effect. Such a person hears the crow of the rooster and then sees the sun rise and thinks to himself that the rooster's crow is the cause of the sun going up each morning. There is no need to further describe how ridiculous this is. The meraglim, however, did just this. They had in their minds that Eretz Yisroel had issues. Therefore, when they saw people dying, they automatically associated it with the bad air quality of the land, instead of thinking rationally – as people who were expected to be ones who trusted in Hashem.

According to the Ramban, they literally invented the Theory of Evolution long before Charles Darwin came along. The meraglim were not interested in attributing the fact that Eretz Yisroel was a land of giants based on it being a great atmosphere to live in. Instead they thought of the idea of evolution to explain why only the giants were able to survive in the exceptional land, but anyone more feeble than the strong giants would not stand a chance.

Obviously hindsight is twenty-twenty vision and it is easy to discredit the meraglim knowing what we know from the Torah's perspective. The lesson we must take out from here though is to realize that these are things we fall for every day and, just like the meraglim, we come up with what we think are rational conclusions. For example, we may see something happen to someone and then see that he totally over reacts and therefore we subsequently conclude that that specific cause that we witnessed must be the reason for his over reaction, in which case he must be crazy. What we may fail to realize though is that there may be a completely different event that we are not aware of which is really the underlying cause.

Additionally, we look for ways to rationalize things that occur to us or that we hear about to be completely natural. We like to think everything is normal. Weird temperatures are normal – caused by global warming; earthquakes are normal – caused by global warming; tornadoes are normal – caused by global warming; animals are normal – because of evolution. We feel comfortable with being able to put a finger on an explanation that sits well in our own minds and that does not interfere with our personal ideologies. Such a mentality though is extremely dangerous and causes a three way disruption: It plays with one's emunah in Hashem, it disturbs our ability to fully care about and understand others, and it allows us to keep feeding ourselves with false ideas as long as we are comfortable with them.

The cheit ha'meraglim (sin of the spies) was one fundamentally of lack of emunah in Hashem. They went in with an attitude that they were vulnerable and consequently became unable to see the situation in any other way. Everything they witnessed became skewed to be explainable within the premise that they set off to prove.

May Hashem help us think according to His da'as so that we could get a better understanding of the ourselves and others, and save us from falling for the same traps that brought about the cheit ha'meraglim.

1Bamidbar 13:2

2See Rashi Bamidbar 13:3

3See Rashi Bamidbar 13:23

4Rashi Bamidbar 13:15

5Bamidbar 13:32

6Ibid.

7Ibid.  

Photo Credit: psalm84christians.org/wp-content/uploads/photo_862_20100705-300x257.jpg

Parshas Nasso - Capitalized Coincidences

Thoughts on The Parsha

Parshas Nasso

Capitalized Coincidences

By: Daniel Listhaus

וַיְדַבֵּר ה' אֶל משֶׁה לֵּאמֹר: דַּבֵּר אֶל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאָמַרְתָּ אֲלֵהֶם אִישׁ אוֹ אִשָּׁה כִּי יַפְלִא לִנְדֹּר נֶדֶר נָזִיר לְהַזִּיר לַה': מִיַּיִן וְשֵׁכָר יַזִּיר חֹמֶץ יַיִן וְחֹמֶץ שֵׁכָר לֹא יִשְׁתֶּה וְכָל מִשְׁרַת עֲנָבִים לֹא יִשְׁתֶּה וַעֲנָבִים לַחִים וִיבֵשִׁים לֹא יֹאכֵל

“Hashem spoke to Moshe, saying, “Speak to the B'nei Yisroel and say to them: A man or a woman who shall set apart by taking a nazarite vow to set apart to Hashem; from wine and hard drink shall he abstain, and he shall not drink vinegar or wine or vinegar of hard drink; anything in which grapes have been steeped he shall not drink, and fresh and dried grapes he shall not eat.”

-Nasso 6:1-3

After describing the degrading process that the sotah must go through, the Torah begins to teach the seemingly unrelated topic of one who accepts upon oneself to be a nazir, and proceeds to relate the relevant halachos (laws).

Rashi¹ is bothered with the fact that these two different subjects are taught right next to each other in the Torah. Why is it that the parsha of nazir is discussed immediately after the parsha of sotah? Rashi writes that the reason the Torah put the topic of nazir adjacent to that of sotah was to teach us that anyone who sees a sotah in her state of disgrace should take upon himself to abstain from wine by becoming a nazir.

The question we could ask on this Rashi is why is it that one who saw the sotah should become a nazir? What does the fact that an unfortunate episode happened in someone else's family or life have anything to do with me? Had I happened to live in a different community, or happened not to turn on the news that day, I would not even know of the event with the sotah. The episode is completely independent of me. It would have happened whether I lived nearby or not, it would have happened whether I would have heard about it or not. How could the Torah expect me to see the sotah and as a response limit myself from the pleasures of this world? Let me live my own life with my own worries. Why does a trouble in someone else's life demand a response from those who, by chance, happened to hear of it?

There is no doubt that the logic behind this question is one which drives many people's decisions in life. For example, imagine one day you sleep through your alarm and end up going to the next minyan in shul because you missed the earlier one you usually go to. After the minyan, the president of the shul gets up and asks the congregants present if everyone could please help gather the sefarim (books) laying around the shul and put them back on the shelf. There are some people who in such a situation will think to themselves, “I was not even supposed to be at this minyan, so there is no way that I could be expected to help out. Furthermore, the announcement would have been made whether I came to the minyan or not.” The person then leaves without helping. However, to put this logic into perspective, let us compare it to a situation where a manager finds himself with two meetings scheduled for the same time at work. He looks at his schedule and sees this and decides to go to neither. After all, the people at meeting A will think he went to meeting B, and the members at meeting B will think he joined meeting A. There is no question that such a mentality is crooked and just as this manager will end up knowing nothing, so too the person who allows such irrational logic to make his decisions for him will miss out on the countless lessons of life. This is what I call the “absence fallacy” – falling into the trap of believing that because one chooses to be absent from two events, one could play them off each other and be exempt from both of them. A person who falls into such a trap of thinking that the events that are part of his life – even if only indirectly – are irrelevant, will never grow to one's potential that is obviously expected of him from the fact that he was put into such a situation.

There is no such thing as coincidence. Every single situation we find ourselves in is part of a hashgacha p'ratis (individual providence) design for us to each be put into an environment from which we are meant to grow. Sometimes things occur that seem like gifts, sometimes they come in the form of challenges; sometimes these things happen to us directly, and sometimes indirectly. However the thing we must constantly keep in mind is that the way that something effects our life is the way Hashem intends for us to need to deal with the situation – specific to our level and to what He wants us to be able to learn from it. If we ignore the messages Hashem is constantly sending us in the occurrences that make up our lives, we will never become a greater person. We must learn from everything that happens around us and capitalize on the opportunity to learn.

When something occurs in our circle of life we are indeed expected to take action. Whether it be something in our family, our community, or the world at large, if the message has reached our ears there must be a reason we were meant to hear it. This is the lesson of the nazir. The person who decided to become a nazir had nothing to do with the sotah, perhaps never met her in his life, and might very well think that the nisayon (test) that the sotah's family went through is one that would never occur in his own. All these things may very well be true. However, what we must keep in mind, as this nazir did, is that things that we witness, events that we are involved in – whether directly or indirectly, and even things which occur in our community or the world are all things that by definition become relevant to us because they are things that Hashem caused to be a part of our lives. For some people the message may be louder and closer to home, and to others it may be more distant and the message more through the grape vine, but either way there has to be something that we do to change and learn from what is going on around us.

May Hashem help us better be in-tuned to the constant stream of messages He sends us in the hashgacha p'ratis way that He deals with us – whether it be the events that occur to us directly or indirectly.

1Bamidbar 6:2

Photo Credit: Edited version of http://stickyfaith.org/articles/time-and-place

Parshas Bamidbar - Mind Over Matter

Thoughts on The Parsha

Parshas Bamidbar

Mind Over Matter

By: Daniel Listhaus

זֹאת עֲבֹדַת בְּנֵי קְהָת בְּאֹהֶל מוֹעֵד קֹדֶשׁ הַקֳּדָשִׁים

“This is the work of the sons of Kehas in the Tent of Meeting: the most Holy.”

אַל תַּכְרִיתוּ אֶת שֵׁבֶט מִשְׁפְּחֹת הַקְּהָתִי מִתּוֹךְ הַלְוִיִּם

“Do not cut off the tribe of the Kehas families from among the Levi'im.”

-Bamidbar 4:4;18

After having counted B'nei Yisroel and describing the positioning of the the B'nei Yisroel around the aron (ark) in the midbar (desert), the Torah continues to relate the tasks of the Levi'im. As the cloud and fire representing the shechina of Hashem traveled, the B'nei Yisroel followed. There was no itinerary that they knew of which outlined how their time in the midbar would be spent. The B'nei Yisroel never knew if they would be pitching tent for the night, week, or month. If this itself did not display a true devotion to Hashem, then certainly the fact that every time they moved, the mishkan had to be taken apart and brought with them to reconstruct at their new location, did. The passuk (verse) in our parsha states that the descendents of Kehas from Levi had the greatest responsibility. They were charged with carrying the Holliest keilim (vessels) – the aron, the shulchan (table), the menorah, the two mizbe'achs (alters), the paroches (curtain partition), and the k'lei shareis (utensils of sacrificial service).

The Medrash¹ says that it was known to those carrying the various keilim of the mishkan that the individuals who would be privileged with carrying the aron would be rewarded tremendously. So, they would all fight over who would get to carry the aron. Each person would be standing over the aron shouting, “I called it” like a kid racing for the front seat of a car. This led to kalos rosh (light-headedness) and a big chillul Hashem.

The ironic thing is, however, that of course if you would ask any member of the crowd arguing for the opportunity of carrying the aron why he was doing such a thing, he would without a doubt respond that he is showing kavod haTorah (honoring the Torah) by fighting for the chance of carrying the aron of Hashem containing the luchos. If this is not worth fighting for, what is? Yet, Hashem obviously viewed the situation quite differently. He commanded Moshe and Aharon to secure the position for Kehas by setting rules as to who is in charge of each keili in order to ensure that no one would die as a result of improperly fooling around the aron.

The obvious question on this Medrash is what exactly went wrong. Indeed those who were fighting to carry the aron had only the best intentions in mind. How could so many people make such a big mistake that instead of showing kavod haTorah, exhibit kalos rosh and b'zayon haTorah without even realizing?

In order to understand their psyche, we must be willing to admit to a fault into which many people fall. Often times, we start a project with the right intentions however, as issues come up and others perhaps disagree with the way we want to carry out the project, we could get so carried away trying to back up our side and show that we are right that we lose focus of the bigger picture. We become biased and so emotionally attached to our opinions to even realize that we have ceased to think rationally.

In the 1950's, France, England, the United States and the Soviet Union were each thinking of creating a supersonic airplane. France and England eventually joined together and both governments invested a tremendous amount of money developing what would be later known as the Concorde. The Concorde got its name as being a word which in both French and English means “in agreement”. The interesting thing about the lifespan of the Concorde is that each year proved to be a complete failure. Whether it was unforeseen costs, issue in construction, or unrealistic plans to make a profit, the Concorde project was a constant headache that all around did more harm than good. Yet, both governments were extremely stubborn and had become so emotionally attached to their project that they were unwilling to let it go for a very long time. If one would have asked during the early years of the Concorde's development why they were doing it, the response would have been that they were trying to drive the economy. Jobs were created and the government was investing a lot of money into it, obviously hoping to get back a substantial amount to make it worth the risk. So why is it then when these seemingly rational people were asked this exact question years down the road after putting effort into the project did they say that granted they saw that their cause was failing but they wanted to continue anyway? The answer is that they fell into the trap of what, thanks to them, is now known as the Concorde Fallacy. They became so emotionally attached to what they were doing that their opinions, perspectives, and future projections of the project were all falsified based on their unwillingness to think rationally and keep in mind what the objective purpose was – to generate a profit.

This is something that is part of human nature and effects each of us whether we realize it or not. We often allow our decisions to be emotionally driven and in turn the real purpose of what we were trying to accomplish falls by the wayside. This is exactly what happened with the Levi'im in the midbar. They were so emotionally attached with a desire to carry the aron – a feeling which originally came from the right place but was taken too far – that they lost sight that their real inner desire was and should have continued to be – a desire to bring about kiddush Hashem, not the opposite.

We must train ourselves to form preventative measures which will be able to stop us from making irrational decisions in order that we remain in control with our minds over the matter at hand, and not our emotions. It is just not enough to know what one is doing, one must think and then know what he is doing.

1Bamidbar Rabbah 5:2

Photo Credit: www.oocities.org/thereisnonamefree/concorde.html