פרשת חקת 5770

 In this week’s Parsha, the Torah discusses the events that occurred at Kadesh when after the death of Miriam the Be’er (which was a rock) that was supplying water to Bnei Yisroel in the merit of Miriam stopped giving water, Bnei Yisroel complained to Moshe that they would die of thirst and to give them water. The Torah then tells us how God told Moshe to take his stick and speak to the rock and then the rock will give water to Bnei Yisroel. Moshe Rabbeinu then proceeded to hit the rock which then gave water to Bnei Yisroel.

 After the actions of Moshe, the Torah tells us that God told Moshe that due to his actions he would not be allowed to enter Eretz Yisroel as he did not sanctify God’s name in his actions of hitting the rock.

 Many of the commentaries try to understand exactly what the sin of Moshe Rabbeinu was. The Ohr Hachayim gives an answer from which we can learn a very important lesson.

 The Ohr Hachayim explains that after the well of Miriam stopped Bnei Yisroel requested from Moshe that he draw water from a different rock that was not the rock that the water originally came from. Furthermore, God had told Moshe two things. First of all, he told Moshe to take the stick and then told Moshe to speak to the rock and to draw water from the rock. Moshe understood that there were 2 different reasons why God would tell him to take the stick. The first one is that he should use the stick to hit the rock and the second reason could be to hold the stick as a sign that Moshe is doing this action as a messenger of God. Furthermore, regarding if he could draw the water out of any rock or only the rock that had supplied the water earlier Moshe again knew that there were 2 possible interpretations of what God meant when He said “draw the water from the rock” as either meaning the same rock or any rock.

 The Ohr Hachayim explains that Moshe decided on the more conservative option which was that God meant that he should hit the rock and it must only be the rock that had previously given water to Bnei Yisroel. The Ohr Hachayim explains that the reason Moshe Rabbeinu chose the more conservative option is that he was afraid if he was wrong and it didn’t work that there would have been a great Chilul Hashem.  The Ohr Hachayim explained that even though his intentions were praiseworthy, Moshe was punished since his decision was based on a slight lack of faith in God. He should have realized that God was able to make the water come out of any rock and through any means.

 Obviously, when we discuss the sin of someone on the level of Moshe Rabbeinu, his sin was only a sin on his level of almost total perfection whereas for anyone else this would not be considered a sin at all. On the other hand, we can still learn a very important lesson from this incident which is that a person’s level of faith in God can color and impact his decision making process. The more a person is able to put his trust in God the less stress he will have in his life and the less the chance is that he will feel the need to do things that might be incorrect based on the feeling that everything that happens is based only on his actions

פרשת חקת 5769

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah tells us that after the death of Aharon Hacohen that Bnei Yisroel began to complain to Moshe saying “why do you take us out of Egypt to die in the desert since there is no food or water …”

The Rabbeinu Bechai asks how could Bnei Yisroel say that there was no food or water in the desert; they had both food in the form of the Manna and water from the rock that Moshe hit?

 The Rabbeinu Bechai answers that the complaint of Bnei Yisroel was that they did not receive their sustenance the same way as all the other nations of the world. All the other nations of the world whether their actions merited or not would have their food and water waiting for them. It was stored in their storehouses and when they were hungry they would go outside to the storehouse and get food. The same thing applied to their water supply. Bnei Yisroel, on the other hand, received their food on a daily basis and they felt that their food was dependent on their actions. If their actions were meritorious they would get food and if not they would not. They wanted to live life like the nations of the world.

 The Rabbeinu Bechai continues and says that they spoke badly about the manna which was actually a great honor and good for Bnei Yisroel. God had made the manna come daily so that Bnei Yisroel would always have their eyes to God for their necessities which would bring along with it an increased level of trust in God.

 The question that can be asked on this Rabbeinu Bechai is how could Bnei Yisroel view this tremendous good as something bad? It should have been just the opposite. They were exposed to tremendous miracles on a daily basis: the manna, the water coming from a rock for their benefit, the clouds of glory, the fact that for forty years in the desert they were not adversely affected by the harsh nature of the desert which would have destroyed an ordinary person. With seeing all the miracles on a daily basis and God’s hand clearly involved in their daily lives, how could they not have seen the good that receiving the manna fresh every day was for them? Even if they didn’t understand the purpose exactly, they should have realized that just like everything else God did for them was for the good this must have been also.

 The answer can be that the longer a person is exposed to something, even if that something is miraculous, they will begin to get used to it and begin to lose the feeling that what they are receiving is special. This could be what occurred to Bnei Yisroel in the Midbar. They got so accustomed to these incredible miracles that they began to lose their uniqueness. Once that occurred all they saw was what they viewed as the negative aspects of the manna and therefore were able to complain about them.

In our lives we see miracles every day in our lives. However, in most cases we just view them as nature and forget that they are truly brought about directly by God. If we truly focus on all the miracles that occur to us on a daily basis then we will inherently grow to love God more and more each day.

פרשת חקת 5768

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah describes how Moshe sent spies to spy on the land of Yazer. The Pasuk further tells us that they not only spied on the land but they conquered its suburbs. The Midrash describes the actions of the spies as follows:

 Those spies were very quick to do the will of God. They said we trust in the prayers of Moshe Rabbeinu. The previous group of spies brought destruction to Bnei Yisroel, but we won’t do so. We believe in God and we will do battle with the Emorites and kill them.

 If we look at this Midrash on the surface we can ask the following 2 questions:

1. Why did the spies say they trust in the prayers of Moshe, shouldn’t they have said like they do at the end we trust in God?
2. Why when discussing the trust in the prayers of Moshe does the Midrash use the word ”Batuach” and when talking about their trust in God the Midrash uses the word “Naamin”?

We can try to answer these questions based on the explanation of this Midrash of the Radal:

 The Radal in trying to explain how the Midrash knew that the spies trusted in the prayer of Moshe, said the Midrash saw it from the words of the Pasuk that said when discussing the conquering of the land used the singular form of the verb instead of the plural. Since there were more than one spy it must be that it was the prayer of Moshe that caused them to defeat their enemy.

With this idea we can now answer both of our questions. The reason the spies said they trust in the prayers of Moshe Rabbeinu was that they knew that it was the prayers of Moshe Rabbeinu and not their merits that would enable them to be victorious even though they were outnumbered in the battle.

With this idea we can also answer our second question. The reason the Midrash used the word ”Bitachon” when describing their trust in the prayer of Moshe was that they trusted in his merits to bring about the miracle. However, when describing their trust in God they used the word ”Emunah” since they believed that God had the ability to do a miracle on their behalf which the previous did not.

This is also implied from the Midrash which says, “The prior spies brought about a tragedy but we won’t since we believe in God”. We will not have the same failings of the prior spies which were that they did not believe in the ability of God to perform miracles on their behalf to fight the giants who lived in Eretz Yisroel.

From this Midrash we can learn a great lesson. These two spies were none other than Pinchas and Calev, two of the most righteous men in the generation; nevertheless they realized that it is not their actions that would cause them to defeat their enemies rather the prayers of Moshe who was so much greater than them. This teaches us that a person must be modest and know where he is holding spiritually and even when good things happen to them to realize that it might not be due to their merits but to the merits of others in Bnei Yisroel or the merits of their ancestors. This will drive a person to continuously want to grow in his Ruchnius.

The second idea that can be seen from here is that no matter the odds, [here it was 2 against many], there is nothing that God can’t do. This belief is imperative in our lives. Whenever, we find ourselves in a situation we feel is hopeless, we should remember that there is nothing God can’t do and even if our merits alone aren’t enough to get us over the top maybe with the merits of others around us or of our ancestors we will be worthy. It is for this reason we should never give up hope and always daven to God even in situations where it looks like there is no hope.  

פרשת חקת 5767

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah describes to us the death of Aharon Hakohein. After describing his death, the Torah describes to us the reaction that Bnei Yisroel had to hearing the news that Ahaaron Hakohein died. The Pasuk says the following:

And all of Bnei Yisroel cried for 30 days over the death of Aharon Hakohein.

There is a famous Rashi that quotes the Avos of Rabbi Nasan that explains why when Aharon Hokohein died all of Bnei Yisroel cried (both men and women) and by the death of Moshe Rabbeinu only the men cried.

The Avos of Rabbi Noson gives several answers and one of them is as follows:

Basically, the Avos of Rabbi Nosson says that Aharon Hokohein was involved in making peace between arguing parties. He used to do it by telling each party that the other side felt so bad and they felt it was their fault but was too embarrassed to apologize. He would tell both sides the same thing and then they would get together and everything would be fine. This is why all of Bnei Yisroel cried when he died as he was so involved in making peace between people.

Now let us examine this for a moment. We see that all of Bnei Yisroel were impacted by the peacemaking endeavors of Aharon Hakohein, (hence the fact they all cried for Aharon), now you would think that eventually this peacemaking trick of Aharon Hakohein would become known and would stop working since people would know that Aharon Hakohein made it up to get them to apologize.  Yet from the end of the Chazal it seems that this always worked. The question is why? Logically it shouldn’t.

The answer could be that a person in truth really wants to always be at peace with their fellow Jews. As a general rule arguments are usually caused by a bad charchter trait like anger or haughtiness (to name a couple of them), like Chazal tell us. Every person deep down feels bad about being in a state of argument and it is just the bad charachter trait that is preventing the person from making peace with his friend. This is why he is so willing to be appeased whenever the opportunity arises and he can get past the bad charachter traits that are keeping him in a state of argument.

If you look at the language of the Avos of Rabbi Nosson it seems to actually imply just this idea. When Aharon Hakohein sat with the person and was telling them that the other person really wanted to apologize he uses the following language:

 Aharon Hakohein sat with the man until he removed the jealousy from his heart.

 This jealousy was what was holding him back from making peace.

 This is why even if intellectually the person may realize that his adversary didn’t really feel the way that Aharon Hakohein described, he naturally desired to actually make peace that he enabled himself to be appeased.

 This is an important lesson for us. Unfortunately, most people get into arguments many times in their lives. Sometimes these arguments continue for long periods of time since no one wants to give in. If we can only realize that Bnei Yisroel is one and that our souls desire to be at peace with everyone, we can then work on ourselves to try to follow the model of Aharon Hakohein and to make peace with our adversaries. If we can do this and remove all the hate from our hearts, we can merit to see the rebuilding of the Beis Hamikdash in our days.