Moshe’s Lesson of Acceptance

Parshas Vaeschanan

Posted on July 19, 2010 (5770) By Rabbi Berel Wein | Series: Rabbi Wein | Level: Beginner

We all believe in the power of prayer. There have been controversial but yet seemingly proven studies that have shown that somehow prayer and being prayed for are of definite physical help to the sick, the bereaved and the troubled. Yet prayer oftentimes leaves us unfulfilled and unanswered. Prayer does not seemingly avert disasters, sadness and even tragedies.

All of us face the challenge of unanswered prayer, when our hopes and requests are apparently ignored and refused by Heaven. Many times this fact of life causes a crisis of faith and belief within a person. King David in his Psalms reflects on this issue many times. The book of Iyov deals with it as well. And to a certain extent it is the main issue raised in this week’s parsha.

Moshe’s prayers are not answered. In fact the Lord instructs him to stop raising the issue of his entry into the Land of Israel with Heaven. There is a finality to Heaven’s refusal to answer or even deal with Moshe’s prayers any longer. Moshe’s prayers, which have saved his people, his brother and sister and others from Heavenly wrath, are now of no effect regarding his own personal request.

The rabbis of the Talmud phrased it succinctly: “The prisoner himself cannot free himself, by himself, from his own confinement.” Moshe will not lead his beloved people into the promised Land of Israel. His time has ended and his prayer will forever remain unanswered. There is therefore a note of inevitable sadness that hovers over this parsha.

Over the millennia of Jewish commentary and exposition of the Torah many reasons have been advanced as to why Moshe’s prayer was so finally and flatly rebuffed. Among the ideas advanced is that the time for Yehoshua’s leadership had arrived and that “the dominion of one ruler cannot overlap the dominion of his successor even by a hair’s breadth.”

Another thought advanced is that Moshe’s generation would not enter the Land of Israel so it would be an apparent unseemly favoritism for Moshe alone to be able to do so. A third idea is that Moshe would appear to the new generation entering the Land of Israel as a supernatural figure, a type of god in a world of pagan belief that regularly deified humans, especially national leaders. Therefore, for the sake of Israel itself, he could not be allowed to lead them into the Land of Israel.

As valid as all of these ideas are, the blunt truth is that we cannot read G-d’s mind, so to speak. Living human beings, the finite, can never grasp the Infinite One. So we must be satisfied to remain unsatisfied in our search for the reasons for unanswered prayers.

Our true refuge lies in faith and acceptance of the unknowable. This in no way weakens the resolve and necessity to continue praying. It merely lowers our levels of expectation and tempers our hubris that somehow Heaven must follow our wishes and dictates. Moshe accepts the fact that his prayers will now go unanswered. His example serves as a lesson for all of us.

Shabat shalom.
Rabbi Berel Wein

 

Our Family Business

Parshas Vaeschanan

Posted on July 26, 2018 (5778) By Rabbi Label Lam | Series: Dvar Torah | Level: Beginner

 

And you shall teach them (V’shinatam) to your sons and speak of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk on the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up. (Devarim 6:7)

And you shall teach them (V’shinatam): – In Hebrew Chidud is an expression of sharpness…They should be sharp in your mouth…That is when somebody asks, you should not hesitate and stammer but rather you should be able to answer immediately. (Rashi)

It seems everyone is expected to be an expert and acquire great proficiency in learning Torah. It may already be obvious but what is the purpose of this requirement? Is it to raise the level of scholarship?! How is everyone able to fulfill this standard if people have different learning styles and varying intellectual capacities?

The Maharal says that the reason for this Mitzvah is that the Torah should become “his”. The student should make the Torah his very-own. He learns this from the very first chapter of Tehillim. It says, “If the Torah of HASHEM is his desire and in his Torah he meditates day and night, he will be like a tree planted by streams of water which yields fruit in its season and whose leaf does not wither… (Tehillim 1:2-3)

Our sages saw a shift in ownership from the first part of the verse to the second. At first it was the Torah of HASHEM that was his desire. Later it is his, the student’s Torah that he meditates in day and night. It became his possession.

How is this done? For sure it takes a great deal of work! There are no short cuts, but perhaps we can find here a hint at a motivation that might make this achievement more possible.

How many times does it happen to each and every one of us? We have all experienced it! Sometimes, many times in the same week this wondrous phenomenon will be displayed before our eyes and go unnoticed. Now we can begin to recognize what it means.

I was in a grocery store this past week. Like a dutiful husband, and like all the other fellows walking around with shopping carts and a handwritten list of specific items that we must come home with or else, there are always those few items that seem impossible to find. They don’t fit neatly into an aisle category like dairy or beverage, or they are just exotic. So we all pass each other wondering aimlessly and calling home multiple times in search of that clue about how it might look or what category it might fit into. Only after the pressure is built up and his patience for this process is diminished will a man park his ego and ask for help. Who do you ask for help in a large grocery store?

There, sitting on a milk crate, busily organizing cans on a shelf is a fellow you may not stop to have a casual conversation with in the street, but desperate times call for desperate measures. So you stand near him and clear your throat attempting politely to get his attention, “Excuse me, but where can I find salmon flavored toothpicks?” He looks up in your general direction pausing for a split second.

At first you wonder if he understood your question or if he speaks your language but within that nanosecond he scans the store in his mind and miracle of miracles, he says in a broken English, “Aisle 6 on the left side, 2^nd shelf, half-way down.” Then he goes back to putting cans on the shelf oblivious to and unimpressed with his own intellectual feat.

I always marvel. How did he do that? He must be a genius! Perhaps he stays up all night studying detailed pictures of the organization of shelves in the grocery store. Perhaps he is going to school at night in pursuit of a doctorate, a PHD in grocery shelf stocking.

None of this is true obviously but the question remains. How does he know where everything in the store is without having to study and memorize notes? The answer is, “It’s his job!” We can learn from here that anybody can learn anything when they make it their business and learning Torah is our family business!

The Wiser We Will Be

Parshas Vaeschanan

Posted on August 2, 2012 (5772) By Rabbi Label Lam | Series: Dvar Torah | Level: Beginner

 

See, I have taught you statutes and ordinances, as HASHEM, my G-d, commanded me, to do in the midst of the land to which you are coming to possess. And you shall keep them and do them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the eyes of the nations, who will hear all these statutes and say, “Only this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” For what great nation is there that has G-d so near to it, as HASHEM our G-d is at all times that we call upon Him? And which great nation is it that has just statutes and ordinances, as this entire Torah, which I set before you this day? (Devarim 4:5-8)

I’m still basking in the afterglow of the Daf HaYomi Siyum at (Giant) Gedolim Stadium and trying to hold on to the memory of being there and Davening with 100,000 brethren. It was awesome! I am haunted by the challenge of the verse in this week’s portion, “Beware and watch yourself very well, lest you forget the things that your eyes saw, and lest these things depart from your heart, all the days of your life…” (Devarim 4:9) I could not help but notice, part jokingly and very seriously too that one of the emphatic themes of the evening was most lit up for all to see in the largest type there at “MET LIFE Stadium”. “MET” is death in Hebrew and “LIFE” is life in English! As if to say, “I place before you today- life and death… and then HASHEM implores, “Choose LIFE!” A celebration of a grueling and complex 7 and ½ year learning cycle by working people with financial burdens and extra-large families is a great testimony of a desire for life. In a world where instant pleasures dominate and the size of the sound bites match the attention span of a fly, and still so many were able to endure, staying focused on a bigger and deeper daily purpose. What an accomplishment!

Rashi says on the verse: “For that is your wisdom and your understanding in the eyes of the nations”- “with this you will be considered wise and understanding to the eyes of the nations.” This is in reference to the Torah and the study of Torah! That is truest indicator of our national IQ.

Rabbi Nota Schiller, the Dean of Ohr Somayach Jerusalem told about an episode when he was yet a Yeshiva student at Ner Yisrael in Baltimore. He had been attending night classes at John Hopkins University in pursuit of a degree. It was the first day of the semester and the professor was taking attendance, methodically reciting names and matching them with faces. Nearing the end of the alphabet, he called out, “Schiller!” Young Rabbi Schiller raised his hand declaring himself present. Noticing a Yarmulka planted firmly atop his head, the professor asked, “Are you a student of the Talmud?” To which Rabbi Schiller proudly acknowledged, “Yes!” The professor then asked rhetorically, “What are you doing here!?”

Rabbi Schiller admitted that he was more than a little taken aback. He had had his share of debates and disagreements with other professors and they had come to some philosophical loggerheads but this was the first day. He was just taking attendance and he did not even have an opportunity to challenge him on any point. He wondered why he was being singled out and picked on! Is this not a case of blatant anti-Semitism?! Without being prompted the professor explained himself as follows: “You realize of course this is a class on sociology and the Rabbis of the Talmud were the greatest sociologists. If they can hold a people together for thousands of years, in disparate lands, under the most difficult of circumstances, and without a central authority, and they should remain one people- one nation, then they must be the greatest sociologists of all time. Since you are a student of the Talmud, I am afraid I have nothing to teach you!” Rabbi Schiller reports breathing a sigh of relief and announcing, “Professor Waterman, I want to put your mind at ease. I had no intentions of learning anything. I only came here for the easy A.”

The Talmud is the original blog. It has a selection of posts from the greatest and most reliable minds over many generations. The closer we can be in spiritual proximity to the notions of those noble minds then the wiser we will be!

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