Open Your Eyes

Parshas Ki Savo

Posted on September 16, 2024 (5784) By Rabbi Naftali Reich | Series: Legacy | Level: Beginner

It is the last day of Moses’ life. The forty years of confinement in the desert are at an end, and the Jewish people stand poised on the banks of the Jordan River. The atmosphere is somber and subdued. Moses had just finished reciting the litany of calamities that would befall the Jewish people should they ever turn away from the Creator. Now it is time for a few words of encouragement. “Hashem did not give you an understanding heart,” Moses calls out to the people, “nor eyes that see, nor ears that hear, until this very day!”

 

Until this very day? What can this possibly mean? The people had just spent forty years learning Torah from Moses in the desert under the most wondrous conditions. A cloud pillar had stood guard over them during the day, and a pillar of fire in the night. They had eaten manna that fell daily from heaven and drunk water from a rock that accompanied them on their from encampment to encampment. Did Moses really think that the people were oblivious to all these divine manifestations? Did he really think they had turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to everything?

 

There is an old Talmudic saying that “the departure of a righteous person leaves an impression.

 

As long as the righteous person is in the city, he is its grace, its radiance and its glory. When he departs, its grace, its radiance and its glory also depart.” The commentators are puzzled by the apparent redundancy. If the righteous person is the grace of city while he is in it, it goes without saying that when he departs the grace departs as well.

 

The answer, they explain, is that all too often we don’t appreciate what we have until we have lost it. When do we realize that the righteous person is the grace of the city? When he departs and the city is suddenly graceless. That is when we recognize the value of what we once had.

In this light, we can understand what Moses was saying on the last day of his life. For forty years, the Jewish people had lived in close proximity to the greatest prophet who ever lived. He had brought them out of Egypt. He had gone up on the mountain to receive the Torah. He guided them with transcendent and inspired leadership. Most important, he devoted day after day, month after month, year after year to teaching them the concepts and nuances of the Torah.

 

After all this time, however, the Jewish people had, to a certain degree, come to take him for granted. They enjoyed the incredibly breathtaking privilege of having Moses as their leader and teacher, but familiarity had sapped them of their breathlessness. Only now, during the waning hours of the last day of Moses’ life, did they realize the sheer grandeur of what they were about to lose. Only now did their eyes and ears open fully.

 

A young man asked a sage how to go about finding riches.

“Would you give a leg,” asked the sage, “for a bagful of diamonds?”

 

“Yes, I would,” said the young man. “The pleasures riches bring would easily compensate for my loss of a leg.”

 

“Come with me,” said the sage, and he led him into the marketplace where a one-legged man sat leaning against a wall.

 

“My good fellow,” said the sage, “would you give me a bagful of diamonds if I could restore your leg?”

 

“I would give two bagfuls,” he replied, “even if I had to spend years stealing them. I would do anything to be relieved of my legless misery.”

 

The sage turned to the young man. “Would you still make that deal?”

 

The young man shivered and shook his head.

 

“Go home,” said the sage. “You don’t have to seek riches. You have it already.”

 

In our own lives, we all want to achieve, acquire and accomplish We focus all our energies and determination on the high goals we have set for ourselves, but high goals are not easily nor quickly reached. What happens in the interim? Do we feel deprived because our goals still elude our grasp? If this is our attitude, then we are cheating ourselves of the exquisite pleasures of what we already have. Let us focus instead on all the blessings Hashem has granted us, our families, our health, the air we breath, the glory of a summer sunset. We may discover that the most valuable riches are already in our possession.

 

Text Copyright © 2010 by Rabbi Naftali Reich and Torah.org.

Rabbi Reich is on the faculty of the Ohr Somayach Tanenbaum Education Center.

 

Man’s Search for Meaning

Parshas Ki Savo

Posted on September 16, 2024 (5784) By Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky | Series: Drasha| Level: Beginner

This week’s portion discusses the entry into the land of Israel and the responsibilities that are intrinsically tied with its inheritance. There are countless blessing mentioned that follow a Torah lifestyle and unfortunately myriad curses when those values are abandoned.

 

But after the litany of blessing and curses, Moshe tells the nation, “you have seen everything that Hashem did before your eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh and all his servants and to all the land. Your eyes beheld the great signs and wonders, but Hashem did not give you a heart to comprehend, eyes to see, or ears to hear until this day” (Deuteronomy 29:2-3). Moshe was obviously referring to the day that the Jews received a Torah comprehension of events. But it defies logic. After all, what does one need to understand about wonders? Water turning to blood, supernatural invasions of wild animals, locusts, and fire-filled hail need no rocket scientist to fathom G-d’s power. Surely the splitting of the sea is as amazing an event that will marvel one’s eyes and stir the senses of any people.

 

What then does Moshe mean when he tells the nation that Hashem “did not give you a heart to comprehend, eyes to see, or ears to hear until this day” ?

 

Rav Noach Weinberg, dean of Aish HaTorah Institutions, tells the story of the young man who came to him in search of spiritual meaning.

 

The young man entered the portals of Yeshiva Aish HaTorah for a few days and then decided to leave the yeshiva in his quest for spiritual meaning across the Land of Israel. The student stopped at synagogues in Meah Shearim, visited the holy sites in Tiberias and Tzefat, and after two weeks of spiritual-hunting returned to Jerusalem and headed straight back to the Yeshiva.

 

“Rabbi Weinberg,” he exclaimed. “I spent two weeks in travelling the length and breadth of Israel in search of spirituality, and I want you to know that I found absolutely nothing!”

 

Rabbi Weinberg just nodded. “You say you traveled the entire country and did not find any spirituality?”

 

“Yes sir,” came the resounding reply. “None whatsoever!”

 

“Let me ask you,” continued the Rabbi, “how did you find the Bafoofsticks?”

 

“Bafoofsticks?” countered the student. What’s a Bafoofstick?”

 

“That’s not the point,” responded the rabbi, “I just want to know how you feel about them.”

“About what?

 

“The Bafoofsticks”

 

The young man looked at the rabbi as if he had lost his mind. He tried to be as respectful as he could under the circumstances. “Rabbi!” he exclaimed in frustration, “I’d love to tell you how the Bafoofsticks were. I’d even spend the whole day discussing Bafoofsticks with you, but frankly I have no idea what in the world is a Bafoofstick!” Rabbi Weinberg smiled. He had accomplished his objective. “Tell me,” he said softly. “And you know what spirituality is?”

 

Moshe explains to the nation that it is possible to be mired in miracles and still not comprehend the greatness that surrounds you. One can experience miraculous revelations but unless he focuses his heart and mind he will continue to lead his life uninspired as before.

 

In fact, even blessings need to be realized. In offering blessing the Torah tells us, “the blessings will be upon you and they will reach you” (Deuteronomy 28:2). If blessings are upon us of course they reach you! Why the redundancy? Once again the Torah teaches us that it is possible to be surrounded by blessing and not realize it. There are people who are surrounded by health, wealth, and great fortune, but their lives are permeated in misery. They have the blessing, but it has not reached them.

 

We need more than physical or even spiritual blessing. We need more than experiencing miraculous events. It is not enough to see miracles or receive the best of fortune. We must bring them into our lives and into our souls. Then we will be truly blessed.

 

Good Shabbos © 1999 Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky

Thank You to Mr. Daniel Retter and family for your words of support and encouragement.

Good Shabbos

Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky

 

The Root Of Unhappiness

Parshas Ki Savo

Posted on September 16, 2024 (5784) By Rabbi Yochanan Zweig | Series: Rabbi Zweig on the Parsha| Level: Intermediate Beginner

“Because you did not serve Hashem, your G-d, with happiness and goodness of heart, when you had everything in abundance”(28:47)

 

The Torah attributes all of the horrific curses which will befall Bnei Yisroel to not serving Hashem with happiness. The complaint is not that we will not serve Hashem, rather, although we will serve Him, the stress is upon the fact that it will not be done with happiness.

 

Citing the Zohar, the Ramban teaches that the admonition in this week’s parsha refers to the period of the second Beis Hamikdash through its destruction and the subsequent exile.¹

 

The Talmud states that the second Beis Hamikdash was destroyed because of “sinas chinam” – “baseless hatred”.² This would appear to contradict the reason offered by the Torah, that the destruction was precipitated by Bnei Yisroel’s not serving Hashem with happiness. How do we reconcile this contradiction?

 

The Torah attests to the fact that we were unhappy, even though we had everything. This is mirrored by the contemporary phenomena which finds a high percentage of depressed and disenchanted people to be those who enjoy success and high social standing. Why do people who apparently have everything that life has to offer, still exhibit a lack of happiness?

 

A person can only be truly happy if he appreciates what Hashem has given him. However, if a person is egocentric, considering himself deserved of all that he has, he will not be content by that which is already his; rather, he will be focused on those things which are not yet his, but to which he feels entitled. If a person goes through life with the attitude that everyone owes him, he will constantly be miserable, never satisfied with what he has. Furthermore, since he feels he is entitled to everything that he desires, a person who has something he desires becomes an immediate threat to him. He begins loathing that person for no reason other than the perception he maintains that that person is withholding from him an object which should rightfully be his. It is this type of loathing that the Talmud defines as baseless hatred.

 

Consequently, baseless hatred can be traced back at its inception to our lack of appreciation for what Hashem has done and continues to do for us. Therefore, sinas chinam is not a different reason than the reason offered by the Torah as to what precipitated the destruction of the Temple; it is a manifestation of being unhappy when serving Hashem.