5770 פרשת שופטים

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah begins by discussing the laws that relate to the leaders of Bnei Yisroel, including the judges, kings, the Kohanim and the Neviim. The Parsha begins by saying “Chase after justice”.

 The Siforno explains that the Torah was telling us that when the people in charge of appointing judges should first look for people who have the trait of justice before you look for the other physical traits that a judge should have. The Siforno brings a proof to this idea from the Pasuk in Shmuel where when Shmuel was looking at the children of Yishai to find the one who God wanted to be the king, God told Shmuel not to look at the way a person looks physically but rather what was inside.

 If we look at the Siforno a little bit more closely we can ask the following question. I can understand that a king whose position it is to lead all of Bnei Yisroel and must have a presence that creates a sense of awe among the people needs to have physical attributes that can create this feeling there might be a consideration for the physical attributes to take precedence. However, by a judge whose position is not to lead but rather to be the decisor of Torah law and the most important traits would logically be the knowledge of Torah law and the trait of justice which will prevent the judges from being swayed by outside influences. Why then would the Torah need to specifically need to warn us to ensure that the physical attributes do not take precedence in our minds over the more important traits of justice?

 The answer could be that we have a natural tendency to view things as good or bad based on their physical attributes. If someone looks regal and imposing we look at them as better than someone who does not look as striking or put together even if in truth the exact opposite is true. In a situation such as this where one of the traits that we do look for in a judge is someone who is physically striking it makes it even more difficult for the people picking the judges to look past the physical to what is obviously more important; the trait of justice.  This is why the Torah felt it was necessary to write a Pasuk to tell us to ensure not to lose focus of what is truly important.

 We live in a world of tremendous materialism where the acquisition of money and physical possessions are viewed as the apex that a person can reach in his life. Unfortunately, in our time these ideas have also entered into our lives. There is a natural tendency for people to look at the material things in the world and due to their beauty feel that they are the important things that we should strive for, while the spiritual aspects of our lives that don’t have the inherent physical beauty sometimes get pushed to a secondary position in our priorities. Now that we are going into Elul and the run up to the Yom Hadin we need to make a conscious effort to keep our priorities in order and to realize that our Avodas Hashem even though it is not physically splashy and striking is in fact our sole purpose in the world.   

פרשת שופטים5769  

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah tells us about the laws regarding going out to battle. The Torah gives the following introduction to the laws of battle. The Pasuk says:

When you go out to battle against your enemies and you see horses and chariots and a large amount of soldiers coming against you, do not be afraid because God is with you.

 The Ohr Hachayim gives a novel interpretation of this Pasuk saying that it refers to the battle a person wages against the Yetzer hara. He explains the Pasuk as follows. There are three reasons why a person should be afraid of the battle against the Yetzer hara. The first reason is that the Yetzer hara is prepared for the battle and when we first enter it we are naturally not prepared for the fight. The second reason is that our natural tendency is to follow after the Yetzer hara when he tells us to sin because our natural desires lead us to go after the physical world. The third reason that it is difficult is that every time we sin it creates in us a spiritual desire to do more sins.  These ideas are represented in the Pasuk by the Hebrew words for horse, chariots and a great many soldiers coming to fight you.  

 However, the Pasuk continues and says, “Do not be afraid of them since God is with you.” The Ohr Hachayim explains that in truth if a person had to fight the Yetzer hara himself he would never be able to emerge victorious it is only through the help of God that we can succeed.  

 The question then becomes if the only way we can be victorious is with the assistance of God and God is giving us that assistance why is it that some people are more successful in the battle than others? The Ohr Hachayim answers this question also. He says when a person comes to be purified then God accepts him and helps him defeat the Yetzer hara.

 It appears from the Ohr Hachayim that everything depends on us. The more we want to improve and succeed and the more we work to achieve perfection the more assistance we will get from God to be able to defeat the Yetzer hara.

 The question that still remains is that in order to get the heavenly assistance we need to want to fight the Yetzer hara and to strive to do the Mitzvos. However, the natural tendencies we have to follow the Yetzer hara should preclude us from striving to change for the better, so how do we ensure that we strive to get close to God so that we can get the needed Heavenly assistance.

 There are many different ways to accomplish this. One way is through learning Mussar. Rabbi Yisroel Salanter writes that a person who commits to learn Mussar is considered in the category of someone who is doing Teshuva. The reason for this could be that learning Mussar has the ability to inspire a person to change. I heard a similar idea from my Rosh Yeshiva who said that if someone only had 15 minutes to learn, he should learn Mussar as that will cause him to realize that he has more than 15 minutes to learn.

 Now that we are beginning the month of Elul we should all try to strive to change for the better and with that we will get the Heavenly assistance to enable us to do a complete Teshuva and merit a good year and the coming of Mashiach.

 פרשת שופטים 5768

 In this week’s Parsha, the Torah describes to us the commandment for Bnei Yisroel when they conquered Eretz Yisroel to appoint a king. The Torah when telling over this Mitzvah used the following language:

 When you come into Eretz Yisroel and you will say appoint upon us a king like all the nations that surround us then you should appoint a king that God will choose.

 The commentaries are all bothered why by this particular Mitzvah does the Torah put the condition of doing it the fact that Bnei Yisroel would ask for a king. If it is a Mitzvah they should appoint a king regardless of whether they want one or not.

 The Rabbeinu Bechai gives the following answer:

  This Mitzvah is only based on the desire of Bnei Yisroel not the desire of God. This is since God doesn’t want there to be any king for Bnei Yisroel except him; furthermore since God takes care of every aspect of our lives what is the need to have a human king? This is why God was so upset when Bnei Yisroel asked Shmuel Hanavi to appoint a king, saying to Shmuel it is not you that Bnei Yisroel despised but rather me.

 What we see from the Rabbeinu Bechai is that in essence the desire of Bnei Yisroel to appoint a king was one that derived from a feeling of “despising God”.

 The question that can be asked is what was it that the king did for them that Bnei Yisroel felt that they so needed. In order to understand this we need to look at the commentaries on the Pasuk that described the first time that Bnei Yisroel asked for a king.

 The Radak says the following:

 When Bnei Yisroel told Shmuel to appoint for us a king, this was bad because it shows a lack of trust in God. Furthermore, Bnei Yisroel said that we want a king like all the other nations in the world; without realizing that we aren’t the same as the other nations of the world since if we follow the ways of God he will fight our battles for us.

 What we see from the Radak is that the request for a king came from not having trust in God.  From this Rabbeinu Bechai we see two very important concepts. The first; that in truth, God is involved in every aspect of our lives. There is nothing that occurs that is not based on the will of God. If we feel God in our lives we can feel confident that we have someone to lean on always and someone who is taking care of us. Second, the tendency is for a person to lose sight of that fact and rather put their faith in Man. This is what happened to Bnei Yisroel at the time of Shmuel Hanavi. They lost the recognition that God is the sole king running our lives, and instead were looking for a human king in whom to put their trust.

 If Bnei Yisroel at that time, who were on a very high spiritual level lost sight of the fact that God was running their lives, how can we reach that level? The answer is that we must constantly focus on it. If before every action we do, we say a silent prayer to God for assistance; we will be training ourselves to put our trust in God. This is also true when we daven Shemoneh Esrai. When we ask for all the requests such as health, and livelihood, etc, we should actually think about what we are saying and understand that it all comes from God. The more we do these things, the more we will be ingraining trust in God into our hearts. This will inherently bring us closer to God. Now that we are beginning the month of Elul about which Chazal tell us that the initials stand for:

I am to my dear one and my dear one is to me.

 This is the time that God is trying to come closer to us and makes it easier for us to come closer to him. This is the opportune time to try to see God in our lives. As Chazal tell us, “if we open the door to God the size of a needle (just start the process), God will open the door like the entranceway to a palace (he will give us the Heavenly help to succeed).

If we can start the process, we can be assured that we will merit having a wonderful year and a year of closeness to God.

   פרשת שופטים 5767 

In this week’s Parsha the Torah discusses the laws that relate to the kings of Israel. The Torah gives over 4 laws. Three of the laws are things that the king should not do. They are as follows:

1.         The king should not have too many horses.

2.         The king should not have too many wives.

3.         The king should not have too much money.

 For the first two prohibitions, the Torah gives the reason for each one. Regarding why the king shouldn’t have too many horses, the Torah gives the reason that in order to prevent Bnei Yisroel from going back to Egypt where the horses were bred.

Regarding, why the king shouldn’t have too many wives, the Torah explains the reason is so that the king should not be influenced by his wives to do sins.

However, regarding the third prohibition of amassing too much wealth, the Torah does not seem to give a reason.

The Torah a couple of Pesukim later says the following:

In order that the king shouldn’t raise his heart over his brother (he shouldn’t feel that he is better than everyone else in Bnei Yisroel).

The Chizkuni on this Pasuk says the following:

This is the reason that the king shouldn’t amass too much wealth so he should not feel that he is better than the rest of  Bnei Yisroel.

The Chizkuni is seemingly bothered by the question; if the Torah gave a reason for the first 2 prohibitions, it would be logical that the Torah gave a reason for the third prohibition also. Therefore, he explains that the Pasuk of “not being haughtier than the rest of Bnei Yisroel” must be the reason for the third prohibition.

Now let us examine this Chizkuni a little more closely. The Chizkuni seems to be saying that if the king amassed too much wealth, he will feel that he is greater than everybody else in Bnei Yisroel. Who are we talking about? A King of Israel has tremendous power. We know the law is that   a king who wants to forgo his honor is not allowed. A king must be listened to, as we know if someone  rebels against the kingdom (king) he is subject to the death penalty. Furthermore, even though the Torah prohibited excess wealth for the king, the kings were still very wealthy, as we saw from Shlomo Hamelech. How is it then that a king who has such power and plenty of money, will only feel that they were better than other people when they amass great wealth?

The answer is that we underestimate the power of money to influence how we view ourselves. Most of the power a king has, he would understand does not relate to himself, but is rather only due to his position as king which he received from God. However, money is different. Since money is something that is generally earned through a person’s efforts people naturally feel that the more they have the better they are since they think it is  my efforts that acquired the wealth. Therefore, if the king amasses so much wealth, the tendency for the king to think he is greater then all the rest of Bnei Yisroel is much greater. It is for this reason that the Torah prohibits the king from having too much money.

 We live in a generation where thank God we are able to financially prosper unlike many of the earlier generations where earning a living was a constant struggle and poverty a constant companion. However, along with this wonderful Beracha comes a great responsibility. As we saw from the Chizkuni it is the natural tendency of a person who is more successful than others financially to feel that they are somewhat better than someone who is not as well off. This can potentially lead to 2 problems. The first being that we lose focus of the fact that our success is a Beracha from God and our efforts as important as they might be are not the deciding factor that got us our wealth. The second potential problem is that when we give charity and thank God we all give lots of it; we sometimes can give over a feeling to the poor person that I am better than you. We know from Chazal that the opposite is the case, that we need the poor people more than they need us. God will always take care of the poor people among us, God gave us the opportunity to do the Mitzvah and if we don’t someone else will.

 We are now beginning the month of Elul and are preparing ourselves for the day of judgement. As we say on Rosh Hashanah one of the 3 things that can break a bad decree is charity. Let us learn from this Chizkuni to constantly remind ourselves that all the money we have does not come only due to our efforts, rather it is a gift from God for us to use properly (i.e. giving charity and doing chesed etc). Let us remember when we give charity that we are no better than the people who need our help and to give that help with an open heart. If we can work on this trait God should remove all bad decrees from Bnei Yisroel and we should all merit to have a good year.

 5766 פרשת שופטים 

 In this week’s Parsha, the Torah discusses the preparations undertaken before Bnei Yisroel went to war. Before Bnei Yisroel went to war the leaders of the army spoke to the potential soldiers and  said the following:

 And the leaders spoke to the people saying who is the man that built a house and did not yet live in it should return home maybe he would die in battle and another man will live in it. The leaders continued and said to speak to the people and they said who is the man that is afraid should return to his house so he should not melt the heart of his brothers like his heart.

There are 2 explanations brought down on these 2 Pesukim from which we can learn 2 very important lessons:

The Sipurno on the words “Maybe he will die and another person live in it” says the following:

 Maybe there was a sin that because of that he would be punished like it says in the Tochacha and damaged his brother who will feel fear in their heart.

The Sipurno seems to be saying that one of the punishments brought down in the Tochacha  is that a person will get engaged and die and not get married, build a house and not live in it and plant a vineyard and not be able to eat from it because you have not finished the period of Orla. When a person who deserves this punishment will go to war and die he will cause the other soldiers spirit to break.

The question that could be asked is if a person who is going to war and is not afraid of dying, just because he sees his fellow soldier killed on the battlefield, why would that cause him to be afraid? Just the opposite, he intellectually knows that the other person was punished for his sins since this is the punishment of the Tochacha, which has no applicability to him if he did not do these sins?

The answer can be that when a person experiences tragedy personally, or sees or hears of tragedies, the fear that arises (from the feeling that it could be me); can impact the person’s sub conscience directly even though intellectually the person knows that the situation does not apply to him.

This can teach us a very important lesson, now that we are entering the month of Elul. We unfortunately heard of so many examples of suffering and tragedies occurring both in Eretz Yisroel and around the world. These events naturally put some level of fear into our hearts. We only don’t feel it because we desensitize ourselves to it. When we hear about these awful events we must not only attune ourselves to feeling the pain that our fellow Jews are feeling but also use the natural feelings of fear that arise in our hearts to spur us to do Teshuvah .

We see an additional idea from the Ohr Hachayim on the last   Pasuk of the four  Pesukim that says “who is afraid should not go to battle as his fear will melt the hearts of his fellow soldiers”.

On that Pasuk the Ohr Hachayim says:

The Ohr Hachayim is saying that the leaders told Bnei Yisroel that anyone who has done sins should not go out to war since he will naturally be afraid because of his sins. However, the Pasuk says that a person with sins should not go to war since his fear should not spread and affect the other soldiers.

 We can ask a similar question that we asked on the Sipurno, if the only reason a person feels fear is due to the fact that they did a sin, why would a person who knows he has not done any sins feel fear?

 The idea here is slightly different than that of the Sipurno. There is a special power that emotions have over intellect that they can go straight to the heart and bypass the mind. This is why the fear can spread from one soldier to another even if the second soldier knows intellectually that he has nothing to fear because he did not do any sins.

We can use this idea also to help us as we enter Elul. We have to look for inspiration wherever we can find it, whether it is a shiur, or a lecture on mussar that you heard or unfortunately some of the suffering among Bnei Yisroel that we heard about. These emotional inspirations have tremendous potential to inspire us. They have the ability to go straight into our hearts.

 I once heard from one of my Roshei Yeshiva that when he was learning in Yeshiva, even if he was sick, he would try never to miss a mussar lecture, since the emotional impact of the lecture might never be replaced. We have to look to capitalize on any inspiration we might get in order to help ourselves do Teshuvah and increase our service of God.