In Control

Parshas Pinchas

Posted on July 14, 2011 (5771) By Rabbi Yochanan Zweig | Series: Rabbi Zweig on the Parsha | Level: Beginner

 “On the seventeenth of Tammuz the Tablets were broken” (Ta’anis 26a)

Five calamities occurred on the seventeenth of Tammuz. The first of these calamities is recorded in the Torah. Upon descending the mountain after having received the Decalogue, Moshe witnessed Bnei Yisroel celebrating the creation of the golden calf and he shattered the Tablets[1]. The verse describes the Tablets as “charus” – “engraved[2].” The Mishna states that the word “charus” can also be read as “cheirus” – “freedom”, for only the study of Torah brings true freedom[3]. Therefore, the breaking of the Tablets reflects a loss of freedom for the Jewish people[4]. What is the difference between the secular definition of freedom and that of the Torah? How do we reconcile the “pshat”, the straightforward reading of the text as “charus” – “engraved”, with the “derush”, the homiletic interpretation as “cheirus” – “freedom”?

Freedom is often defined as our right or privilege to act or express ourselves without coercion in whichever manner we desire. The Torah’s definition of freedom is cognizant of the fact that very often we behave in a manner which hides under the guise of freedom of expression, yet in reality we are submitting to coercive forces. Whether our actions are influenced by societal pressures or by our physical or emotional desires, these actions cannot be described as completely free from coercion. We ourselves are aware of the destructive nature of our actions but are helpless to overcome the deceptions of societal acceptance and self-gratification. The pursuit of Torah not only empowers the individual with the ability to overcome any coercive forces, but also removes the conflict that exists in the decision making process, synthesizing the individual’s visceral sense to behave appropriately with his desires. Being bound by restrictions does not imply a lack of freedom; restrictions are not only ultimately for our benefit, but they prevent us from taking actions which we truly wish to avoid.

The words of the Decalogue (Ten Commandments) symbolize spirituality and the Tablets themselves, that which is physical. Had the Decalogue been described as ink which is scripted upon parchment, this would imply imposition of the words upon the Tablets. Chazal teach us that Hashem miraculously caused the letters of the Decalogue to suspend themselves within the Tablets. The Tablets wrapped themselves around the words, conforming to them[5]. This reflects the complimentary nature of the physical and the spiritual which can coexist without any conflict.

We all have a natural proclivity to behave in an appropriate manner. The Torah removes the impediments that mask our true feelings, breaking through the misconceptions and misguided value system which society creates for us.

Wrinkles!

Parshas Balak

Posted on July 7, 2011 (5771) By Rabbi Label Lam | Series: Dvar Torah | Level: Beginner

 “Behold! a people has come out of Egypt. Behold it has covered the eye of the land and it rests opposite me. So now come and invoke a curse upon this people for me, for it is more powerful than me; perhaps I will succeed, we will strike at it and I will drive it away from the land, for I know that whoever you bless is blessed, and whoever you curse is cursed.” (Bamidbar 22:5-6)

In this moment of desperation Balak appeals to the lone prophet of the gentiles, Bilaam to work the wonders of his craft upon the Jewish People. With which instrument is he to attack? His mouth! He is to launch words! He has no atomic bomb or standing army or secret weapon except for his power of speech. Isn’t that odd? The entire threat of against the Nation of Israel, ready to enter the promised- land, is in the form of a few dangerously distributed daggers of the tongue. How can that possibly spell a credible peril?

Words are not benign items like decorative furniture that they exist for our convenience or beauty alone. King Solomon had acknowledged that “Life and death are in the hands of the tongue!” The famous British poet Rudyard Kipling expressed it this way, “Words are the most intoxicating drug known to man!” Isn’t it so!? Lives rise and fall on a single word! People get courage to carry on or so discouraged to end it all, based on the slight turn of a phrase. It makes a world of difference if the message says, “I love you!” or “I hate you!” Feelings rush and roar and rage in one direction or another depending on whether “You’re hired!” or “You’re fired!” How many professions are built on the artful science of combining letters and mixing words? Psychologists and writers and lawyers and teachers and statesmen and salesmen and many more are all earning their worth almost entirely by merely fashioning phrases.

Why is it, that words are so central to our existence? Is it only because we need to share practical information? I don’t think so! The entire world was created by G-d with words! We say every day in our liturgy, “Blessed is He Who spoke and the world came to be!” That G-d said, “Let there be light! And it was so… so light continues to run at 186,000 mile per second to this very day! That heavenly mandate still reverberates through the cosmos! Since humanity was created in the image of G-d, with a breath of life, our ability to speak is unique and a feature we share with the Divine! We can create or utterly crush worlds with mere utterances of the tongue! Those articulate sounds are not just waves that temporarily tickle our ears! Words are forever!

Bilaam had a terrific talent for words! He painted the ultimate portrait of positivity about our ancient people with his few well-chosen words. We live on them till today, even though it was not his original intent. “How goodly are your tents Yaakov…” Had he been allowed to push his wicked agenda and say anything other than the truth who knows how he would have distorted our image as the Merchant of Venice or some other libelous lie that taints our legacy and haunts us now for thousands of years! The Bilaam’s of the world are still on the prowl and we are frequently torpedoed with titles we don’t deserve like “racist” for just daring to exist?

On the local level though, we can all appreciate how people are broken or built by just a very few words!

An elderly woman and her little grandson, whose face was sprinkled with bright freckles, spent the day at the zoo. Lots of children were waiting in line to get their cheeks painted by a resident artist who was decorating them with tiger paws.. “You’ve got so many freckles, there’s no place to paint!” a girl in the line said to the little boy. Embarrassed, the little guy dropped his head. His grandmother knelt down next to him. “I love your freckles. When I was a little girl I always wanted freckles,” she said, while tracing her finger across the child’s cheek. “Freckles are beautiful!” The boy looked up, “Really?” “Of course,” said the grandmother. “Why just name me one thing that’s more beautiful than freckles.” The little boy thought for a moment, peered intensely into his grandmother’s face, and softly whispered, “Wrinkles!”

 

DvarTorah, Copyright © 2007 by Rabbi Label Lam and Torah.org.

 

Words are Weapons

Parshas Balak

Posted on July 17, 2019 (5779) By Rabbi Berel Wein | Series: Rabbi Wein | Level: Beginner

 

We are all sufficiently sophisticated and experienced in our time to realize that wars are conducted on many different levels and not necessarily always on the battlefield or with massive armies. The Torah reading of this week introduces us to perhaps the first recorded use of psychological warfare and propaganda in human history. The magician, soothsayer and prophet of the non-Jewish world, Bilaam, is engaged by the King of Moab, Balak, to curse the Jewish people and to psychologically weaken them so that they would be unable to resist the army that Balak will eventually send forth to destroy Israel.

Apparently, everyone involved, both the Jews and the non-Jews, believed that this type of psychological warfare – cursing the people – would be effective. And apparently, all concerned agreed that if the Lord had not taken control of the mouth of Bilaam so that blessings and not curses came forth from his tongue, the Jewish people would have been materially harmed by his words.

All the commentators wonder why G-d had to change the words of Bilaam into words of blessing instead of curses. He, so to speak, could have just ignored what Bilaam had to say and arranged it so that those words would have had no effect on the Jewish people. The commentators concluded that heaven recognized that spoken words always have an effect and cannot be completely ignored. The hateful words that Bilaam intended to curse the Jewish people with should never be allowed to have been uttered for they would undoubtedly have had some effect and that effect would have been negative in all respects.

Jewish tradition teaches that all words have importance and consequences. Words define us for good or for better and even though they are intangible, they leave lasting effects on those who say them and those who hear them. Judaism always places a heavy emphasis on correct speech and on meaningful and holy words. Bilaam achieved fame and fortune in his generation because of his words. But the fact that those words were used to destabilize and curse others, branded him an evil person no matter how great his talents and ability may have been.

At the end of this week’s Torah reading, he again uses words to advise the enemies of Israel how to overcome the Jews spiritually and to eventually destroy them physically. He comes to give advice but by so doing he unleashes a weapon as lethal as any sword or spear, bomb or rocket. It proves again the adage of the rabbis that life and death are in the hands of the tongue. Even the blessings and the good words that he spoke about the Jewish people, because of the coercion of Heaven, in the end proved hollow and insincere. As the rabbis put it, from the blessings that he said, we can well deduce what the curses are that he meant to inflict upon Israel. Speech can kill and it can heal. The choice is always ours.

Shabbat shalom
Rabbi Berel Wein

 

Leadership Qualities

Parshas Chukas

Posted on June 15, 2010 (5770) By Rabbi Naftali Reich | Series: Legacy | Level: Beginner

He brought down the wrath of Heaven on Egypt until Pharaoh agreed to let the Jewish people go. He led them out to freedom. He parted the sea and led them through. He brought them to the foot of Mount Sinai to receive the Torah. He guided them through the desert for forty years. But at the last moment, when they stood poised on the threshold of the Promised Land, his leadership came to an end. Moses passed away without stepping a foot into the Promised Land.

Why wasn’t Moses granted the privilege of entering the Promised Land to which he had labored so diligently to bring the people?

We find the answer in this week’s Torah portion. After Miriam died, the miraculous well from which the people had slaked their thirst in the desert vanished, and they were left without water. They maligned Moses for taking them from the gardens of Egypt into an arid wasteland. Hashem told Moses to assemble the people and speak to the rock, which would then give forth water. Moses called the people together. “Listen, you rebels,” he declared angrily. “Can water come out of this rock?” Then he struck the rock with his staff and water flowed. But Moses had erred. Instead of speaking to the rock, he had struck it. And for this, Hashem decreed that Moses would not enter the Promised Land.

Let us now look for a moment at the Torah reading of Devarim, where Moses is reviewing the events of the previous forty years in his parting words to the Jewish people. He reminds them of how the people had responded to the slanders spread by the spies upon their return from the land of Canaan, and how Hashem had decreed that the entire generation would die in the desert and only their children would enter the Promised Land. “Hashem was also infuriated with me because of you,” Moses concluded, “saying, `You too will not arrive there.'” It would seem, therefore, that Moses was barred from entering the Promised Land because of the sin of the spies, not because of the sin of striking the rock. How do we account for this apparent contradiction?

The commentators explain that Moses had originally been exempt from the decree barring the Jewish people from entering the Promised Land because of the sins of the spies. As a leader of the Jewish people, he was in a class by himself. He was not integrated into the body of the common people. He was not driven by their motivations or influenced by their social currents. Although he was always sensitive to their needs, his thoughts, convictions and motivations were never controlled by the ebb and flow of public opinion. Therefore, since he was not really one of them, he did not have to share the unfortunate fate of the people when they erred and sinned.

But at the incident of the rock, Moses lost his imperviousness to public opinion. No longer aloof and remote in his decision making, he flared at the Jewish people. “Listen, you rebels!” he cried in anger. He allowed the people to get to him, and as a result, he struck the rock instead of speaking to it, in disobedience of Hashem’s command. Therefore, he no longer deserved to be considered in a class by himself, and he shared the fate of the people who were barred from the Promised land because of the sin of the spies.

A man once asked a great sage for his opinion of some popular political leaders.

“They are like dogs,” he replied.

The man was puzzled. “Like dogs? Why?”

“Very simple,” said the great sage. “When a man walks down the street with his dog, the dog always runs ahead, yapping excitedly. But when he gets to the corner, he doesn’t know which way to turn. So he stands and waits for his master to catch up. Once his master chooses the new direction, the dogs is off and running once again. These leaders you mentioned have no opinions or convictions of their own. They sniff the air to discover in which direction the wind is blowing, and then they are off and running. Some leaders!”

In our own lives, we are called upon to act as leaders, whether in the broader community, our immediate circles or simply in our own families for our children. Everything we do sets an example for others and influences them at least to some extent. But in order to be true leaders, we must have the courage and integrity to follow our own convictions. We must have the fortitude to live spiritually rather than cave in to the pressure of the fashionable materialistic trends. Despite the decadence of our society, or perhaps because of it, there is a latent thirst for spirituality among the people around us. If we live by our convictions, we can have a part in bringing that thirst into the open and literally change the world.

 

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

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

 

Internal Combustion

 

Parshas Korach

 

Posted on July 3, 2019 (5779) By Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky | Series: Drasha | Level: Beginner

“Any quarrel,” says the Mishnah in Pirkei Avos (5:20) “that is made for the sake of heaven shall, in conclusion, last. However, if the argument has selfish motivation it shall not last.” The Mishnah offers Hillel and Shamai as an example of heavenly opponents. Their arguments will last forever.

 

On the other hand, Korach and his congregation are the examples given for those whose debate stemmed from egotistical motivations. “Those types of disputes,” says the Mishnah, “are doomed to fail.”

 

The Mishnah, is of course referring to the episode in this week’s portion. Korach, a first cousin of Moshe, contested the priesthood. He gathered 250 followers, formed a congregation, and openly rebelled against Moshe and Ahron, claiming that Moshe and his brother underhandedly seized both temporal and spiritual leadership. Moshe, in his great humility, offered a solution in which divine intercedence would point to the true leader. Korach and his followers were swallowed alive by a miraculous variation of an earthquake.

 

Yet two questions occur on the Mishnah. By using the expression that, “an argument for the sake of heaven will last,” it seems to show that an ongoing argument is a proof of its sanctity. Shouldn’t it be the opposite?

 

The other anomaly is that in referring to the kosher argument, the Mishnah refers to the combatants, Hillel and Shamai. Each was on one side of the debate. Yet, in reference to the argument that is labeled as egotistical, it defines the combatants as Korach and his congregation.

 

Weren’t the combatants Korach and Moshe? Why is the latter part of the Mishnah inconsistent with the former?

 

On the week following Passover 1985, I began my first pulpit in an old small shul in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The scent of herring juice permeated the building, and the benches did not creak as they swayed, they krechtsed. As old as the furnishings were, the membership was older. But the Congregation’s spirit of tradition of was feistier than its physical appearance.

 

My first week, I was asked to bless the new month of Iyar, Mevarchim HaChodesh. Then the trouble began. Every Shabbos, a somber prayer, Av HaRachamim, which memorializes Jewish martyrs during the era of the crusades is recited. On holidays or other festive occasions such as Shabbos Mevarchim, in deference to the spirit of celebration, the prayer is omitted. However, the month of Iyar is considered a sad time for Jews. 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva perished in that period. Many congregations recite Av HaRachamim on Shabbos Mevarchim for the month of Iyar. I assumed my new congregation did the same and began reciting, ” Av HaRachamim.” Immediately I heard a shout, and an uproar began.

 

“We don’t say Av HaRachamim today. We just blessed the new month,” announced the President.

 

“We say it this month! It’s sefirah, a period of mourning,” yelled back the Vice-President.

 

” You know nothin’. We never ever say it when we bench (bless) Rosh Chodesh,” yelled the Treasurer.

 

“We always did!” asserted the Gabbai.

 

The argument was brewing for five minutes when they all began to smile and instructed me to say the prayer as I had planned. Before I continued the service I sauntered over to the old Shammash who was sitting quietly through the tumult and asked, “what is the minhag (custom) of this shul?”

 

He surveyed the scene and beamed. “This shul is 100 years old. This is our minhag.”

 

The Mishnah gives us a litmus test. How does one know when there is validity to an argument? Only when it is an argument that envelops eternity. The arguments of Shamai and Hillel last until today, in the halls and classrooms of Yeshivos and synagogues across the world. Each one’s view was not given for his own personal gain, it was argued for the sake of heaven. However, Korach’s battle with Moshe was one of personal gain. Moshe had no issue with them. It was a battle of Korach and his cohorts. Each with a completely different motivation — himself. It did not last. A battle with divine intent remains eternal. In a healthy environment there is room for healthy differences. And those differences will wax eternal.

 

 

Dedicated in honor of the anniversary of Joel & Robbie Martz by Mr. and Mrs. Perry Davis

 

Mordechai Kamenetzky – Yeshiva of South Shore

 

Good Shabbos