Lech Lecha - The Faith of Abraham

In the beginning of Parshas Lech Lecha, God instructs Abraham to leave his homeland and to travel to the land that He would show him. God then blesses Abraham (Genesis 12:2):

ואעשך לגוי גדול ואברכך ואגדלה שמך והיה ברכה

And I shall make you into a great nation, and I shall bless you, and I shall make your name great, and you shall be a blessing."

On this verse, Rashi cites a midrashic interpretation from the Talmud (Pesachim 117b) that connects this verse with the opening blessing of the Amidah - the silent standing prayer which is the centerpiece of all Jewish prayer services. The blessing begins with the words, "Blessed are You, Hashem,  our God and the God of our fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob" and concludes with the words, "Blessed are You, Hashem, Shield of Abraham". It is in connection to this blessing that Rashi writes:

"ואעשך לגוי גדול" - זה שאומרים "אלקי אברהם." "ואברכך" - זהו שאומרים "אלקי יצחק." "ואגדלה שמך" - זהו שאומרים "אלקי יעקב." יכול יהיו חותמין בכולן, ת"ל "והיה ברכה" - בך חותמין ולא בהם:

"And I shall make you into a great nation" - This refers to their statement, "God of Abraham." "And I shall bless you" - This refers to their statement, "God of Isaac." "And I shall make your name great" - This refers to their statement, "God of Jacob." You might think that the blessing would conclude with all of them, the verse therefore says, "and you shall be a blessing" - meaning, with you they shall conclude, and not with them.

Many commentaries point out that the reason we describe God as the God of each of the Patriarchs individually, i.e. "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob", is to teach us that Isaac and Jacob did not simply accept the teachings of their father, but rather each one took the teachings of his father and developed it further. Each of the Patriarchs thereby established a relationship with God which was not simply derivative from the teachings of his father. Thus, the God of Isaac was not simply the God of his father Abraham, and the God of Jacob was not simply the God of Isaac or the God of Abraham. As Rav Avigdor Miller writes in his commentary on the Siddur (Praise My Soul p.371):

The word "G-d" is repeated for each [of the Patriarchs] because each was a pioneer and an original discoverer in the matter of coming close to G-d, in addition to continuing that which he received from his father.

Rabbi Shimon Shkop

Rav Shimon Shkop (d.1940) discusses this idea (הובא בספר עץ הדעת עה"ת) that each of the Patriarchs took his father's teachings and developed it further, so that the teachings of Jacob represented a synthesis of the strengths of all three of the Patriarchs. Being that this is so, we would expect - as the Talmud says - that the blessing would conclude, as it begins, by naming all three of the Patriarchs. Yet this is not so; the blessing concludes only with Abraham.

Rav Shkop sees this as an allusion to the history of the Jewish people. Abraham came to know God on his own, and he passed this knowledge down to his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob. Each of these, in turn, took this knowledge and developed his own unique relationship with God. This included coming to know God independently of the teachings they had received from their fathers. Thus, in one sense, the teachings of Isaac, and even more so, the teachings of Jacob, represent a higher, more developed form of faith than that of Abraham. We would, therefore, have expected that this more sophisticated form of faith would stay with the Jewish people for all time.

Yet, explains Rav Shkop, the Sages are telling us that this is not what will happen. Rather, באחרית הימים - in the final generations before the redemption, many Jews will drift away from their ancestral faith, and when their descendants are aroused to return, they will no longer have the benefits of their tradition, and will be forced to start from the beginning, like Abraham. 

Therefore, Rav Shkop says, we should not despair when we see that many Jews have drifted away from Judaism. For the Sages already predicted that this would occur, and that the Jewish people would ultimately have to return to the "simpler" faith of Abraham. The opening blessing of the Amidah concludes with Abraham alone to signal to us that the ultimate conclusion of Jewish history will depend on a return to the most basic elements of our faith, the teachings of Abraham, who taught us how to recognize the Creator on our own, even without the benefit of our ancestral traditions.

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Noach - The Value of Diversity

Towards the end of Parshas Noach we read the famous story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9):

The whole earth was of one language and of unified terms. When they journeyed from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they settled there. And they said, a man to his fellow, "Come, let us make bricks, and fire them," and they had brick for stone, and asphalt for mortar. And they said, "Come, let us build us a city, and a tower with its top in the sky, and let us make for ourselves a name; lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."

And God descended to see the city and the tower which the children of men had built. And God said, "Behold, they are one people with one language for all of them, and this is what they begin to do! And now nothing that they plan to do will be withheld from them! Come, let us go down and confuse their language, so that a man will not understand the language of his fellow." And God scattered them from there over the face of all the earth, and they stopped building the city. Therefore it was called by the name Babel, for there God confused the language of all the earth, and from there God scattered them upon the face of all the earth.

The story of the Dor Haflaga - the Generation of the Dispersal - is one of the most enigmatic narratives in the Torah. Humanity joins together in a great project, to build a great city and tower, that would enable them to live together in unity. This would seem to be a good thing, certainly not a sin! Yet, while the Torah never actually accuses them of committing a sin, or even of doing anything improper, God clearly disapproved of this plan and instead caused humanity to be scattered over the entire earth.

The commentaries struggle a great deal to explain what the Torah is telling us in this story. There are many midrashim that tell us that the builders of the Tower were engaged, in some sense, in a rebellion against God; that they intended to ascend to the Heavens and wage war against God (an utter absurdity, if understood literally). Others say that the Tower was intended for idolatry, or to somehow prevent another flood. However, in the final analysis, the Torah does not mention any of these concerns, and instead focuses only on the fact that the entire human race was unified. The Torah is clearly indicating that, whatever other issues may have been going on, the critical problem was the fact that they were unified. And, in the end, they were not really punished, but simply dispersed over the face of the earth. Thus, the problem was unity and the solution was dispersal.

How are we to understand this? Aren't peace and unity among the most basic values taught by Judaism? The unity of the human race should have been a good thing; one that we should try to emulate! Indeed, the Ibn Ezra writes that even the most righteous men of that generation - Noah, his son Shem, and even Abraham himself - were among the builders of the Tower of Babel!^[1] Clearly, then, the intent of the builders of the Tower was not wicked. So what did they do wrong?

The Netziv
R' Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin

In his classic essay on anti-Semitism, She'ar Yisrael (usually printed in the back of his commentary on Shir Hashirim), the Netziv (Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin, d.1893) explains that the fundamental problem with the Dor Haflaga was that their actions went against God's intended goals for mankind in two basic ways.

Firstly, because God's intent is that mankind should spread out over the entire earth, as God instructed Noah (Genesis 9:7), "And you, be fruitful and multiply; swarm in the earth, and multiply therein."

Secondly, and more significantly, the goal of the Dor Haflaga was not only to keep mankind united geographically, but also to keep them united ideologically, that they should have a unified culture and philosophy. The function of the Tower was to enable the people to supervise the surrounding regions, in case any group attempted to break away from the community and go off on their own. God, however, does not intend mankind to have a single monolithic culture. Rather, God's intent is for humanity to be diverse, with many different cultures and opinions and ways of life.

While the people of that generation may have had good intentions, they made the same error that has been made by innumerable intelligent people throughout history. They sought to create a utopia - an ideal society. And like every other utopia that has ever been proposed, their perfect society had one critical flaw: the repression of diversity. Every utopia requires a system - ultimately, a totalitarian system - that ensures conformity to the standards of the society. Once true diversity is allowed in, once people are allowed to make independent choices about how to live their lives, the utopia will quickly lose its utopian qualities.

We see here that diversity is a good thing, and that mankind is supposed to have many different kinds of people and cultures. This is true not only on a global scale, but even within the Jewish people themselves, in the twelve tribes of the children of Israel, each of which had its own unique culture and way of life.

Of course, there are limits to diversity. There are moral principles that God has imposed on all mankind, and even more so on the Jewish people. These cannot be set aside for the sake of diversity. However, within the parameters of the laws and teachings of the Torah, there remains a great deal of room for diversity. Indeed, the Chozeh M'Lublin (R' Yakov Yitzchak Horowitz, d.1815) commented on the famous passage from the Talmud (Makkos 3:16), "God wanted to give merit to Israel, therefore He increased for them Torah and mitzvos," that the abundance of mitzvos is intended to enable each individual to serve God in his own unique fashion.^[2]

It goes without saying that peace and unity are extraordinarily important values, but they are not absolute values. Tolerance of diversity is an intrinsic aspect of genuine peace and unity and a peace and unity that is built upon conformity for its own sake has no value whatsoever. True peace and unity must be built upon a foundation of truth and the recognition of shared core values that are far more important than any superficial conformity. Indeed, such a unity of mankind is the ultimate goal of history. As God described the messianic age to the prophet Zephaniah (3:9), "For then I will change the peoples to a pure language, so that they will all call in the name of God, to serve Him in unity."

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[1] Ibn Ezra (Genesis 11:1) states: ...היה אברהם מבוני המגדל, ואל תתמה, כי נח ושם היו שם. The Seder HaDoros (א' תתקע"ד) cites this opinion as well, נח ואברם ושם עזרו בבנין המגדל. Rav Miller similarly cites the Ralbag as saying that Noah and Shem were among the builders, but I was not able to find this in the Ralbag.

[2] ביאורי חסידות לש"ס from R' Y.Y. Chasida on Makkos 23b from Sefer Zichron Zos - Vayakhel.

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Sukkos - The Sukkah and the Function of the Jewish People

In the Torah’s description of the festival of Sukkos, the Torah describes the obligation for Jews to dwell in sukkos – “booths” – for the entire seven days of the festival (Leviticus 23:42-43):

You shall dwell in sukkos for seven days; every native in Israel shall dwell in sukkos. In order that your generations will know that I had the children of Israel dwell in sukkos when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am Hashem your God.

For the seven days of Sukkos, a Jew is required to make the sukkah his main dwelling place. He must eat all his meals there, and, ideally, he is required to sleep there as well.

The Menoras HaMaor (Rabbi Yitzchak Aboav, Late 14^th Century) explains that the underlying message of the obligation to dwell in the sukkah is to teach us place our trust purely in God. He writes (146:3-5):

...באה מצות סכה זאת ללמדנו שלא ישים אדם בטחונו בגבה ביתו וחזוקו ותקונו הטוב – ואף כי יהיה מלא מכל טוב – ואל יבטח בסיוע שום אדם – אע"פ שיהא אדון הארץ ומושל בה – אבל ישים בטחונו במי שאמר והיה העולם...

ולהעיר לאדם על זה, באה מצות סכה בזמן הזה – אחר אסיפת גרן ויקב בארץ ישראל... – לפי שבזמן הזה הוא זמן בעיטה לכל, שהאוצרות מלאים כל טוב והאדם כבר נאסף לעיר..., לפיכך צוה לצאת מביתו החזק וישב בסכה, כדי שיתעורר וישים מבטחו בשם ית' ויתן אל לבו כי כל הטוב שהגיע אליו מן היוצא בשדה, הכל בא לו ברצון ה'.... ויזכור שכל שמירת גופו וכל אשר לו מאת ה' ית' ולא יבטח באשר לו.

וגם באה מצוה זו להעיר ולהזכיר כי בסכות הושיב ה' ית' את בני ישראל במדבר ושמרם מן החרף ומן הקרח והצנה והגשמים והחום בלי בית ותקרה, ובזה יראו כי בכל דור ודור שומרם בוראם בלי בית וחומה דלתים ובריח.

The mitzvah of sukkah comes to teach us that a person should not place his trust in the height and strength of his home, or its good condition – even if it is filled with all good things – and he should not place his trust in any human being – even if he is the lord of the land and has dominion over it – but he should put his trust in He Who Spoke and the world came to be….

To bring forth this point, the mitzvah of sukkah comes at this specific time – after the grain and wine harvest in the land of Israel – for this is a time of rebelliousness for all, when the storehouses are full of all good things and one is gathered into the city…. Therefore, one is commanded to go out of his secure home and dwell in a sukkah, in order to awaken him to place his trust in God, and to take to heart that all the good that has come to him from going out to the field, it all came to him by the will of God…. And he should remember that his security, and the security of all that he has, comes from God, and he should not place his trust in his possessions.

This mitzvah also brings forth and reminds us that God had the children of Israel dwell in sukkos in the wilderness, and He protected them from the winter ice and cold, and from the rains, and from the heat, without a house or a ceiling, and through this they would see that in every generation their Creator would protect them, without a house, wall, doors, or key.

The basic message of the sukkah is our dependence on God; that He alone is the one true source of security and protection. R’ Avigdor Miller writes (A Kingdom of Cohanim – Vayikra 23:43):

In the Wilderness our fathers had no walled cities inn which to find protection from the many potential predators. Our father’s possessed great wealth that they had taken from Egypt, and all the nations would have attempted to attack Israel to seize this wealth. But despite the fact that that our fathers possessed no fortifications or walls to protect them, and even no houses with sturdy walls, yet in their flimsy tabernacles of cloth and straw, they were more secure during these 40 years than at any subsequent time in their history. The only true security is Hashem: that is the lesson of Succos.

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch

Ultimately, the message of the sukkah – that God controls everything, and that our welfare is entirely in His hands – is the basic message that the Jewish people exist to convey to the entire world. R’ Samson Raphael Hirsch writes (The Nineteen Letters, Letter Seven):

While mankind was to be taught by experience, and from its fate it was to gain knowledge about God and itself, the attainment of this aim was to be assured and furthered by a special arrangement. …There would be introduced into the ranks of nations one people which would demonstrate by its history and way of life that the sole foundation of life is God alone; that life’s only purpose is the fulfillment of His Will; and that the formal expression of this Will, specifically addressed to this people, serves as the exclusive bond of its unity.

This objective required a nation that was poor in everything upon which the rest of mankind builds its greatness and the entire structure of its life. To all appearances being at the mercy of nations armed with self-reliant might, it was to be directly sustained by God Himself, so that, in manifestly overcoming all opposing forces, God would stand revealed as the sole Creator, Judge and Master of history and nature....

Thus, this people came to constitute the cornerstone on which humanity could be reconstructed. Recognition of God and of man's calling found a refuge in this nation and would be taught to all through it's fate and its way of life, which were to serve as a manifest example, a warning, a model, a education.

For the sake of this mission, however, Yisrael could not join in the doings of the rest of the nations, in order not to sink down with them to the worship of material possessions and pleasure. It has to remain separate until the day on which all mankind will have absorbed the lessons of its experiences and the example of this nation, and will united turn toward God. Joining with Yisrael at that time, mankind will then acknowledge God as the sole basis for its existence and "as God is One, the recognition of His Name will be one." Then, "the teaching of His Law will go forth from Zion and the Word of God from Jerusalem."

The passage of the Jewish people through the desert encompassed by the “Clouds of Glory”, with no material protection but their trust in God, marked the beginning of the role of the Jewish people as the “Light unto the Nations”, which required their elevation and separation from the nations, but which would ultimately bring all mankind to the service of God in unity.

This transition is described in Kabbalistic terms by R’ Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (d.1747) in Derech Hashem (IV:8:2):

הנה ענני הכבוד שהקיף הקב"ה את ישראל, מלבד תועלתם בגשמיות שהיה לסכך עליהם ולהגן בעדם, עוד היתה תולדה גדולה נולדת מהם בדרכי הרוחניות, והוא כמו שעל ידי העננים ההם היו נמצאים ישראל מבדלים לבדם ונשואים מן הארץ, כן היה נמשך להם מציאות הארה המשכנת אותם לבד, נבדלים מכל העמים, ומנשאים ומנטלים מן העולם הזה עצמו, ועליונים ממש על כל גויי הארץ. ודבר זה נעשה בשעתו לישראל, להגיעם אל המעלה העליונה הראויה להם.... ומתחדש דבר זה בישראל בחג הסכות על ידי הסוכה.

The Clouds of Glory with which God encompassed Israel [in the wilderness], asides from their physical benefit, which was to shelter and protect them, also had a major spiritual effect. Just as the clouds caused Israel to be set apart and lifted above the earth [physically], similarly there was drawn a reality of illumination that dwelled only with them, separating them from all the nations and lifting them and removing them from this [physical] world itself, [so that] they were literally elevated above all the nations of the earth. This was done to Israel at that time, in order to bring them to the high level that was proper for them. … This [elevation and separation] is renewed [each year] for Israel on the festival of Sukkos through the sukkah.

Thus, the sukkah thus represents the role of the Jewish people in this world, as a distinct nation devoted purely to God, elevated and separated from the nations of the world, to serve as a model of what humanity’s relationship with God can and should be. The Jewish people, who’s very existence as a nation is a miracle, a people who’s fortunes throughout history have been clearly tied to their obedience to God’s will, testify through their existence and their fortunes to God’s dominion over history.

The prophet Zechariah (14:16, in the haftara of the first day of Sukkos) tells us that, ultimately, when mankind will come to recognize the truth of God’s dominion, then all the nations will come to celebrate Sukkos:

והיה כל הנותר מכל הגוים הבאים על ירושלים ועלו מדי שנה בשנה להשתחות למלך ה' צבאות ולחוג את חג הסוכות.

And it shall come to pass, that all who are left of all the nations that came against Jerusalem, shall go up from year to year to bow before the King, Hashem, Lord of Hosts, and to celebrate the festival of Sukkos.

In his commentary on the Haftaros, R’ Mendel Hirsch (d.1900) comments on this verse:

So we see Judaism as the religion of the future. Its truths acknowledged by all, its laws understood and kept, the general ones of humanness and morality by mankind in general, the special ones for Jews dedicating them to be the priests of mankind, by the Jews. The reign of everlasting peace will have started. All enmity, all hate of one to the other will have disappeared for by the universal recognition of God as their One King henceforth all men form one great family. And all class war will have come to an end by the knowledge and realization of the teachings of the Tabernacles Festival.

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Ki Savo - The Tochacha and Serving God with Joy

The bulk of Parshas Ki Savo discusses the prophecy of reward and punishment for the Jewish people. The Torah tells us that if we listen to the voice of God and obey his commandments, then we will be greatly blessed. It is here that we find the famous verses (Deuteronomy 28:3,6):

ברוך אתה בעיר וברוך אתה בשדה:

ברוך אתה בבאך וברוך אתה בצאתך:

“Blessed shall you be in the city, blessed shall you be in the field.

Blessed shall you be in coming, blessed shall you be in going.”

The prediction of blessing for obedience to the commandments of God is followed by the Tochacha – the Admonition. In the Tochacha, the Torah describes, at length and in very harsh and frightening terms, the terrible punishments that await the Jewish people, as a people and as individuals, when they fail to obey the commandments of the Torah. The Tochacha speaks of warfare and slavery, disease and madness, famine and poverty, and every other form of human suffering. The concept of reward and punishment is made very graphically clear.

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch writes (Deuteronomy 28:1) that the Tochacha is intended to stress the responsibility of every individual for the spiritual welfare of the nation. For when the nation suffers for its general failings, every individual – even the most righteous – suffers with it.

Although the subject matter of the Tochacha is very difficult for us, it also provides us with an essential key to understanding the events of Jewish history. The Jewish people have experienced great suffering over the millennia, despite consistently being morally superior to the surrounding peoples. This is the result of our special relationship with Hashem. Like any caring parent, God does not want His children to simply be superior to the surrounding environment, but that they should be truly good and righteous. Once we have absorbed the lessons of the Tochacha, the tragedies of Jewish history, while still tragic, are no longer mysteries.

When the Tochacha is read in the congregation on Shabbat, the custom is to read it in a low voice. Rav Avigdor Miller explained (The Path of Life p. 293) that this is to teach us an important lesson. Even when it is necessary to give strong rebuke to another, it should be done in as gentle a manner as is possible. “The most effective way of communicating and having people listen to you is to speak in a soft voice. ‘The gentle words of the wise are heard.’ (Ecclesiastes 9:17)”

In the midst of the Tochacha we find the statement that the Jewish people are being afflicted with these terrible punishments because they did not serve God with joy (Deuteronomy 28:47):

תחת אשר לא עבדת את ה' אלקיך בשמחה ובטוב לבב מרב כל:

“For you did not serve Hashem your God with joy and a good heart, when all was abundant.”

At first glance, the implication of this verse is that although the people were performing the mitzvos properly, their lack of joy in their service to God resulted in severe punishment. This is very surprising. While we can readily readily recognize the virtue of joy in the performance of the mitzvos, the lack of joy—by itself—would not seem to warrant such harsh punishment.

R' Matisyahu Salomon

Rav Mattisyahu Salomon, the mashgiach of the Lakewood yeshiva, explains (מתנת חיים-מועדים עמ' קל"ה) that this is not the intent of the Torah. Certainly, the grave punishments of the Tochacha are reserved only for the complete failure to perform the mitzvot entirely. The intent of the verse here is simply to explain how it is possible that the Jewish people could ever fall to such a low level of Torah observance. The Torah teaches us that this can only happen if, even when the Jewish people were observing the mitzvot, their observance was joyless. Only then could they come eventually to abandon the mitzvot entirely.

This teaches us a very important lesson. If one does not find joy in Torah and mitzvot, this is a clear indication that his Torah and mitzvot are flawed in some significant way. Perhaps he doesn’t properly appreciate the significance of mitzvot. Or perhaps he is performing the mitzvot incorrectly. A dry and mechanical observance of the mitzvot will quickly lose its appeal. We are required to find a way to serve God with joy.

Whenever we encounter an obligation that touches upon our inner feelings, people will often ask how can God command us to feel a certain way? We often hear people say, "I can't help how I feel!", as if our feelings are not subject to our control, and, in fact, there is a significant degree of truth to this. Exerting direct control over our feelings can be very difficult, and in many cases it is not possible, and attempting to do so can actually be harmful. But if this is true, then how can God demand from us that we control our emotions? For example, in our case, how can God require us to serve Him "with joy and a good heart"?

The answer is that while our emotions may seem to arise as if of their own accord from our experiences, how we perceive our experiences has a profound impact on our feelings and emotions. The exact same experience can inspire very different feelings, even in the same person, depending on how the person interprets or perceives the experience.

I remember once, as a child (I was probably about 9 years old), I was walking with some friends in our neighborhood and we encountered an older boy. He was probably only about 13 years old, but to us he seemed like a really big boy, almost an adult. He came over to us and starting asking us impolite questions, and making faces at us, and generally being rude. So we were rude back, and he started to run after us, and we ran away, and we called him names, etc. While this was going on we ran into an adult we knew, and we told him, "That boy is being mean to us!" He looked at the boy and, to our surprise, he became visibly upset, at us! He explained to us that this boy had not been making fun of us, he was mentally disabled and he was just being friendly. I still remember how this one piece of information hit me like a wave of ice water. Suddenly, in the place of my sense of justified anger, I felt guilt and shame. I looked at the boy, and now I could see it too, that he was just being nice and how confused and hurt he was by our behavior. Even today, more than thirty years later, I feel guilty when I think about this incident.

Ultimately, all of our emotions are rooted in how we perceive the world around us, and if our perception of the world is erroneous, then our feelings will reflect that error. It precisely in this manner that we are required to control our emotions, not by simply repressing our feelings, but by bringing our mental picture of the world into congruence with the ultimate truth revealed in the Torah.

In no area is this more important than with regard to happiness, and it is for this reason that failure to serve God with happiness is indicative of a much deeper spiritual problem. God has given us the great gifts of Torah and mitzvos, yet so often we act as if these are not gifts at all but burdens! This is rooted in a fundamentally distorted perception of our relationship with God that can be illustrated with the following analogy:

Imagine the owner of a small store, living in an urban neighborhood. Everyday he struggles to keep his business functioning, so that he can bring home enough money to pay the bills. Then one day, the door opens and in walks one of the local mobsters, followed by two huge thugs. "Nice store you have here, bud," he says with a grin, "wouldn't want to see anything happen to it." The two thugs chuckle, as a chill runs down the store-owner's back. "Tell you what," the mobster continues, "we have a service for guys like you. All you gotta do is pay a monthly fee, and we guarantee that nothing happens to your place of business. It's like insurance. You interested?" The storeowner knows exactly what is happening, and he realizes that he has no choice but to agree. "How much?" "A special deal for you, just $10 a month," the mobster replies, "that's practically for free!" And so, every month, the store-owner hands over his $10 dollars. And even though it's just $10, every time he pays that money he is filled with anger and resentment. But he has no choice; the mobster is stronger than him and if he doesn't do what the mobster says, then the mobster will destroy everything he has.

Now imagine, in a parallel universe, the same store-owner, and one day the door opens and in walks a fellow in a suit. "Hi," he says with a smile, "I don't know if you remember me, but I grew up in this neighborhood. You once helped me when I was a little kid and one of the bigger kids was bullying me. I have done very well for myself over the years, and I really want to show my gratitude to you, and to the community as a whole that got me off to such a great start. I think your store could do very well with a proper capital investment, so I would like to become a silent partner in your business." The surprised store owner asks, "How much money are you talking about?" and the fellow responds with a number well into the seven digits. "Don't worry," the fellow says, "your obligation to me will be minimal. I'm not really looking to make money off this, so all you have to do is send me a monthly payment of $10 a month." The fellow then writes out a check, hands it to the store-owner, and walks out the door. And so, every month, the store-owner pays his ten dollars to his benefactor, and the every time he wonders how such a minuscule payment can possibly be sufficient. Surely he ought to be doing more, but the "investor" won't hear of it.

There are two ways that we can view our obligation to obey God's commandment. I can look at all that I have: my life, my wife, my children, my home, my job, my cars, my bank accounts, my intelligence, my health, etc. and I can say, "These are mine! But God says that if I don't do what He says, He will destroy it all!" So I obey, because God is stronger than me, and I am afraid. Yet, every time I obey God's command,  I resent it.

Or I can recognize the truth, that everything that I have in life was given to me by God. I had no prior claim on anything before He gave it to me; I didn't even exist! God owed me nothing, yet He gave all of this to me, even though I had done absolutely nothing to earn it. And now God tells me that there are some things that He expects from me. There are a some rules and regulations that apply to all of these gifts that he has given me. When one looks at the world with this perspective, it is impossible not to see the mitzvos as the ultimate bargain. How can you not serve God with joy, when you realize that all God wants in exchange for all that He has given us is that we follow a few rules?

The sad reality is that it is all too easy to forget the true nature of the world, and to see God as if He is interfering in our lives. Much of the daily prayer service is intended precisely to help us keep the true perspective clear in our minds. As we see from the Tochacha, this task is of central importance. A Judaism without joy is a Judaism that is doomed to failure, if not in one generation, then the next.

Rav Moshe Feinstein would frequently say, "People destroyed their children by always repeating es iz shver tzu zien a Yid (it is hard to be a Jew). No – it is not hard to be a Jew. It is beautiful and joyous to be a Jew." (Reb Moshe p.73) If we truly appreciate the privilege of Torah and mitzvos, then we will always be filled with joy and happiness that we are Jews.

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From Av to Elul – From Tragedy to Repentance

We are currently in the Jewish month of Av, the month devoted to mourning the destruction of the Holy Temples in Jerusalem – which culminates in the fast of Tisha B’Av – and to our faith that God will eventually comfort us – as expressed in the seven haftaros read each Shabbos between Tisha B’Av and Rosh HaShana. The month of Av is followed by Elul, the month devoted to teshuva (repentance) in preparation for Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur.

What is the meaning of this sudden shift from the month of tragedy and mourning to the month of penitence and rapprochement between Man and God? To understand this we need to gain a deeper insight into the basic message of Av.

The Midrash (Eicha Raba 1:1) states:

Three [prophets] prophesied using the term “eicha”: Moses, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. Moses said, “How (Eicha) can I bear this people alone…” (Deut. 1:12). Isaiah said, “How (Eicha) has the faithful city become a harlot…” (Isaiah 1:21). Jeremiah said, “Alas! (Eicha) She sits in solitude…” (Lamentations 1:1).

R’ Levi said, “This is analogous to a noble-woman that had three servants, one saw her when she was in comfort, one saw her in her licentiousness, and one saw her in her disgrace. Similarly, Moses saw Israel in their honor and comfort and said, “How can I bear this people alone…”, Isaiah saw them in their licentiousness and said, “How has the faithful city become a harlot…”, and Jeremiah saw them in their disgrace and said, “Alas! She sits alone…”

These verses of Eicha are all read in the month of Av – the verses in Deuteronomy and Isaiah are read on the Shabbos before Tisha B’Av and the book of Lamentations is read on Tisha B’Av – and, taken together, they give us a key to the basic message of Av. The Elef HaMagen (Commentary on the Torah by Rav Eliezer Papo, d. 1824, author of the Pele Yo'etz) draws a connection between these three verses of Eicha and a passage in the Talmud (Yoma 35b):

A poor man, a wealthy man, and a wicked man are brought before [the heavenly court for] judgment. They say to the poor man, “Why didn't you study Torah?” If he responds that he was too poor and was preoccupied with his livelihood, they say to him, “Were you more impoverished than Hillel?” [Hillel the Elder, one of the greatest sages of the Talmud, was also an extremely poor man.] … 

They say to the wealthy man, “Why didn't you study Torah?” If he responds that he was wealthy and was preoccupied with his financial obligations, they say to him, “Were you more wealthy than Elazar ben Charsom?” [Rabbi Elazar ben Charsom was a prominent sage who was also extremely wealthy.]…

They say to the wicked man, “Why didn't you study Torah?” If he responds that he was very good-looking and was [therefore] preoccupied by his desires, they say to him, “Were you more beautiful than Joseph HaTzadik (the Righteous)?” [Joseph, the son of Jacob, was extremely beautiful and was severely challenged in this regard when he lived in the home of Potiphar in Egypt.]…

Thus we find that Hillel obligates the poor, Rabbi Elazar ben Charsom obligates the wealthy, and Joseph HaTzadik obligates the wicked.

The Talmud gives three categories of rationalizations – the excuses of poverty, wealth, and temptation – that people rely upon to deny their responsibility for their moral failures. Almost every excuse that we make for ourselves falls into one of these three categories. These three excuses are paralleled in the three verses of Eicha. Moses spoke of the Jewish people in their time of success, paralleling the challenge of wealth; Isaiah spoke of the Jewish people in their time of sin, paralleling the challenge of temptation; and Jeremiah spoke of the Jewish people in their time of suffering, paralleling the challenge of poverty.

Rav Avigdor Miller

The Midrash (Eicha Raba 1:1) points out the connection between the word Eicha and the word Ayeka (both words are spelled identically) in Genesis 3:8, when, after the sin of eating from the Tree of Knowledge, God calls out to Man, “Ayeka?" - "Where are you?” What exactly was God asking? God certainly knew exactly where Adam and Eve were hiding! Rav Avigdor Miller explains:

Every sinner hides from Hashem… behind self-justifications and self-deceptions. ...all sinners are actually hiding from Him behind their barricades of self-deception and self-justification. ... Hashem calls to the Man: “Where are you?” meaning: Reveal yourself to Me, by removing the barricades of self-justification and false reasoning behind which you attempt to hide from Me.

The cry of Eicha – How can it be! – alludes to that original call of Ayeka – Where are you? – in which God calls us to stop deceiving ourselves and return to Him. The tragedies we mourn in the month of Av are repetitions of that call, intended to shake us out of our complacency and force us to accept responsibility for our actions. The message of Av is precisely this, that it was our failures – failures that we continue to repeat – that brought about these tragedies, and that we must recognize this and acknowledge our own power to change our behavior. We are not slaves to our circumstances; as human beings we are fundamentally free to control our actions, and we therefore bear the responsibility to do so.

Maimonides

Maimonides devotes two full chapters of his laws of repentance to the topic of free-will (Hil. Teshuva 5:1-3):

Free-will is given to every human being. If he wishes to turn himself to the good path and to be righteous, he has the ability to do so, and if he chooses to turn himself to the bad path, and be wicked, he has the power to do so....

Do not think... that God decrees upon a person at the beginning of his existence whether he will be righteous or wicked. It is not so! Rather, every single human being has the ability to be as righteous as Moses our Teacher, or as wicked as Jeroboam....

This concept is a major principle and the pillar of the Torah and the Commandment, as it says (Deuteronomy 30:15), "See, I have placed before you today life and good, and death and evil." And it is written (ibid. 11:26), "See, I have placed before you today blessing and curse."

Maimonides concludes his discussion of free-will stating (Hil. Teshuva 7:1):

Since, as we have explained, every human being has free-will, a man should strive to repent and to cleanse his hands of his sins, so that he should die as a penitent and merit to the life of the world to come.

The recognition of our free-will and responsibility is of fundamental importance as we enter the month of Elul – the month of teshuva (repentance). As long as we deceive ourselves into thinking that our actions are not within our control, teshuva is impossible. It is only after we accept responsibility for our deeds that we can begin the process of teshuva.

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Pinchas - The Miracles of Daily Life

At the end of Parshas Pinchas, we read of the various communal offerings made in the Temple on the mo'adim - the special "appointed" times of the year. Conventionally, the term mo'adim includes all the various festivals of the Jewish year, thus the Torah goes on to list the communal offerings of the festivals of Passover, Shavuos, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkos and Shemini Atzeres. However, the Torah's discussion of the special offerings of the  mo'adim seems to go far beyond the conventional understanding of the term, and includes not only the festivals but also Rosh Chodesh (the new month), the Sabbath, and even the daily tamid offering.

R' Samson Raphael Hirsch (Numbers 28:2 and in his commentary on the Siddur, p.23) notes that the inclusion of the daily tamid offering into the category of the mo'adim conveys "a Truth of no small importance". He writes (in his Siddur):

God appointed מועדים, special occasions that attest to His rule and summon His people to His presence, to commemorate annually His mighty acts in Egypt, at the Red Sea, on Mount Sinai and in the wilderness. These miracles actually involved suspension by God of the natural order which He Himself had instituted, and thus bear eloquent witness to His greatness. In the same manner, God also appointed the transitions of morning and evening, which occur daily with clock-like regularity, to be מועדים too. These daily, "ordinary" natural phenomena are also to serve as messengers testifying to God's power and summoning the people to worship Him, to demonstrate to us the hand of God as it can be seen even in the course of the world, and to call each of us to come before Him.

For the very steadiness, the regularity, of the phenomena of nature is a much clearer, more wonderful manifestation of Divine wisdom and omnipotence than the suspension of these natural laws when God's miracles were executed. In fact the purpose of these special acts of God which interrupted the regular order of nature was to point to Him as the Lawgiver of these natural laws, lest the thought of Him as Regulator, Master, and Lord of the world order be lost through the steady regularity of the natural phenomena.

In this passage, Rav Hirsch is articulating a very basic concept. Contrary to how we often think, the laws of nature are no less a product of God's will and power than even the most dramatic open miracles. In fact, fundamentally, the only distinction between the laws of nature and open miracles is that God apparently prefers the laws of nature to be the "normal" mode of operation for His universe. As Rav Hirsch points out, both here and elsewhere in his writings, the regularity and predictability of the natural laws can cause us to overlook or forget that they are not fundamentally any different from outright miracles. Indeed, the primary function of miracles is precisely to remind us that all of the natural world is subject to God's will, and that even the most ordinary of natural events is actually a miracle.

The principle being taught here by Rav Hirsch can be found in many earlier sources. In his commentary on Exodus 13:16, the Ramban (Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, also known as Nachmanides, d.1270) develops this theme at some length, arguing that the function of miracles is to testify to the truth of the basic principles of belief, that God is all powerful and that He supervises and manages the events of this world. The Ramban summarizes this idea in a famous statement:

ומן הניסים הגדולים המפורסמים אדם מודה בנסים הנסתרים, שהם יסוד התורה כולה. שאין לאדם חלק בתורת משה רבינו עד שיאמין שכל דברינו ומקרינו כולם נסים, אין בהם טבע ומנהגו שך עולם, בין ברבים בין ביחיד.

From the great public miracles, man is led to acknowledge the hidden miracles, for they (i.e. the hidden miracles) are the foundation of the entire Torah. For a man can have no share in the Torah of Moses until he believes that everything that happens to us, whether as a community or as individuals, is entirely miraculous, and there is no element of "nature" or "the way of the world" in them.

Sometimes people, especially children, ask why God doesn't perform miracles for us nowadays. In fact, with the exception of the period immediately following the Exodus from Egypt, miracles have always been relatively rare events. Even in the days of the prophets, the ordinary Jew lived a life governed, on the surface at least, by natural laws. Why doesn't God perform miracles for on a regular basis? Wouldn't that make it easier for us to be better and more faithful Jews?

There are many answers to this question (not the least being that, as we see from the sins of the golden calf and the spies, the mere fact that one has witnessed open miracles does not ensure that one will avoid even obvious sins). This principle that we have just learned from Rav Hirsch and the Ramban gives us a deeper insight into why this is so. Ultimately, the will of God is not that we should recognize Him when He performs open miracles. God wants us to recognize His presence in every aspect of the natural world. In even the most ordinary and mundane elements of life, we should see the wisdom and kindness of the Creator.

Rav Avigdor Miller

One recent figure who truly embodied this idea was Rav Avigdor Miller ז"ל (d.2001). Rav Miller was famous for his ability to appreciate the wisdom and kindness of God in every aspect of life. I once heard Rav Simcha Bunim Cohen, a prominent Lakewood rabbi who is married to Rav Miller's granddaughter, speak of a minor incident he witnessed with Rav Miller that illustrated his unique ability in this area. Rabbi Cohen was accompanying Rav Miller on one of his regular walks in Rav Miller's Brooklyn neighborhood. As they were walking, Rav Miller noticed a peach pit lying on the sidewalk. Pausing in his walk, Rav Miller began to jump up and down on the peach pit. Somewhat bemused by Rav Miller's surprising behavior, Rabbi Cohen asked him what he was doing. Rav Miller pointed to the peach pit and asked him if it appeared damaged. Rabbi Cohen responded that it looked fine. Then Rav Miller pointed out that the peach pit is so hard that he had been unable to break it open even by jumping up and down on it, yet if it was placed in the ground and watered, after a while it would simply open up on its own and a delicate new plant would grow from it, eventually developing into a new peach tree. From this we see the wisdom and kindness of the Creator, Rav Miller continued, for he provided the seed with a strong protective shell, yet that hard shell will automatically open when it is time for the young tree to come out.

This story represents an ideal that we all need to work towards. We need to be aware of God's presence, of His wisdom and kindness, in every moment of our lives. We should see him in the food we eat, in the functioning of our bodies, and in every aspect, both human and natural, of the world around us. Rav Miller himself wrote a great deal about this idea, much of which is based upon the classic mussar work, Chovos HaLevavos. In particular, the second section of the Chovos HaLevavos, called the Shaar HaBechina (The Gate of Examination), focuses on this essential concept.

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