‫‪Parsha‬‬ ‫‪Preview

Harav Hagaon Binyomin Cohen Shlita

Ignore the Naysayers

Parashas Shelach

Harav Hagaon Meir Tzvi Shpitzer

Do You See and Hear?

Parashas Shelach

Harav Hagaon Binyomin Cohen

The parashah begins with the chet hameraglim, a terrible chet that caused Klal Yisrael to remain in the Midbar for 40 years. Because Klal Yisrael cried a בכייה של חינם, on that day, Tisha b’Av, both churban bayis rishon and churban bayis sheini occurred.

The chet of the meraglim was essentially lashon hara, and Chazal tell us that there was something fundamental behind this. In Rashi’s first comment on the parashah, he asks why Parashas Shelach is juxtaposed with the parashah of Miriam, who spoke lashon hara and was stricken with tzaraas. He answers, citing Chazal, that these resha’im saw what happened to Miriam, but did not take mussar from it.

This is a monumental life lesson: Whenever we see something, we have to take mussar from it Rather than view things in life superficially, we have to take a deeper look so that we learn a lesson from anything we see and hear. Had the meraglim done that, they would not have sinned.

Human, or Donkey?

The Gemara teaches that if the early generations were like malachim, then we are like people; if they were like people, then we are like donkeys – and not like the donkey of R’ Pinchas ben Yair, but like regular donkeys.. The simple understanding of this statement is that later generations experience yerias hadoros, spiritual decline.

If this was true at the time of the Gemara, what are we, so many generations later? How much lower have we fallen?

R’ Akiva Eiger explains this as follows. How does a person look at the previous generations? On one hand, the people of those earlier generations were also human beings, who look like us, with two eyes and two ears, beards and noses. But if we realize that those earlier generations were on a higher spiritual level, and we view them as malachim, then we can be considered people — because the purpose of an adam is to look deeper, not to live a superficial life. But if you view those earlier generations merely as people, just like us, then you should know that you’re a chamor — because a donkey sees only superficially. Unlike a person, it is incapable of taking a deeper look and understanding on a more profound level what his eyes perceive.

The donkey of R’ Pinchas Ben Yair, on the other hand, was not like a regular donkey, because he knew how to take a deeper look. When he saw food, he saw tevel, and he wouldn’t eat the food because he knew maaser hadn’t been taken.

When Avraham Avinu approached the site of the Akeidah, he told Eliezer and Yishmael: שְׁבוּ לָכֶם פֹּה עִם הַחֲמוֹר. Chazal expound the phrase עִם הַחֲמוֹר to mean: עם הדומה לחמור. This gives rise to the halachah that a non-Jew is not considered to have yichus, just as a donkey has no yichus. But why is this the place from which we derive this halachah?

We can explain that Avraham Avinu asked Eliezer and Yishmael, “What do you see on the mountain?” Yitzchak saw a cloud; he saw the Shechinah. They, however, saw only a mountain — just as a donkey would see. They were not capable of seeing beyond the externals.

In this vein, the passuk in Tehillim states: אָדָם בִּיקָר וְלֹא יָבִין נִמְשַׁל כַּבְּהֵמוֹת נִדְמוּ, meaning that if a chashuveh person doesn’t understand things more deeply, and doesn’t use his intellect to look beyond the superficial and live life with a deeper understanding, then he’s akin to an animal.

The Rambam, in a letter, relates that he once attended a party where distinguished philosophers were eating in a way that wasn’t appropriate to their intellectual standing, and he was very bothered by this: How could such wise people eat with such taavah? That day, the Rambam resolved that before he attends a large seudah he will eat at home. This way, when he arrives at the meal he will be basically full, and he won’t experience that taavah to eat and end up eating the way those philosophers ate.

The Rambam saw something and took mussar from it. He lived with hisbonenus; he learned lessons from what he saw.

 

 

See What You Want to See

Why, indeed, did the meraglim not take mussar from what they saw? Before the chet, they were great people, tzaddikim.

Perhaps the explanation is, as Chazal tell us, that they had negius: They didn’t want to go into Eretz Yisrael because they were afraid they were going to lose their leadership positions once they entered Eretz Yisrael. Since did not possess the ratzon to go into Eretz Yisrael, they weren’t looking for the mussar. We see, then, that for a person to look deeper into things, he has to have a desire to take mussar from what he sees.

The tefillah of the Noam Elimelech expresses the wish: שֶׁנִּרְאֶה כָּל אֶחָד מַעֲלַת חֲבֵרֵינוּ וְלא חֶסְרוֹנָם. R’ Aryeh Finkel zt”l asked, how does a person do that? A person naturally sees the chesronos in his friend!

He answered that if a person has the desire to see the maalos in his friend, then he’ll see his maalos and not his chesronos. This idea is illustrated by the following two stories.

One Friday night, in the town of R’ Chaim Sanzer, snow was piled high, and there was only one Yid walking on the street: R’ Chaim himself. He was walking to the other end of town because the local shoemaker was making a shalom zachor, and he knew no one else would show up. He walked with mesirus nefesh, in the high snow, to attend the shalom zachor, and when he entered he realized that he was right: No one else was there. The table was all set up, complete with arbes and l’chaim, and R’ Chaim came in, wished the new father mazel tov, drank a l’chaim and ate some arbes.

Turning to R’ Chaim, the shoemaker commented, “I know you’re a big tzaddik and a talmid chacham, but I never realized you’re such a baal taavah! You came all this way for a little l’chaim and some arbes?”

Another time, someone met a wagon driver who used to travel to and from Lizhensk, and he asked him if he has any stories to tell about the Noam Elimelech. “I have one story,” the wagon driver replied. “One time I parked my horse and buggy and it was stolen. I didn’t know what to do, because I had lost my whole parnassah, so people advised me to go to the Rebbe, the Noam Elimelech. I went to him, and he told me, ‘Go to the end of the town, make a right, and you’ll find it tied to a tree.’ And that’s exactly what happened!”

“Nu,” the listener responded, “so did you become a chassid?”

“I’ll tell you the truth,” the wagon driver said. “I won’t say that the Rebbe himself stole it, but he’s part of that band of robbers.”

A person sees what he’s looking to see. If you have a ratzon to see gadlus and tzidkus, then you’ll see R’ Chaim Sanzer the tzaddik, and you’ll see the ruach hakodesh of the Noam Elimelech. But if you’re not looking for that, then chalilah you might see R’ Chaim Sanzer the baal taavah, and the Noam Elimelech the ganav. It depends what you want to see.

 

New Associations

This idea is reflected in the parashah of tzitzis, at the end of this week’s parashah. The Torah says: וּרְאִיתֶם אֹתוֹ וּזְכַרְתֶּם אֶת כָּל מִצְו‍ֹת ה’ — when you look at tzitzis, you’ll remember all the mitzvos. Chazal say that when you look at the blue techeiles, you’ll be reminded of the sea, which is reminiscent of the sky, which reminds us of the kisei hakavod. So when you see techeiles, you see the kisei hakavod.

A Yid once asked R’ Yerucham Levovitz: “I went to the sea so many times, but I never saw the kisei hakavod!”

R’ Yerucham answered him as follows. The halachah is that a man may not gaze at a woman’s colored clothing, even if he does not know her, because he might come to improper thoughts. “Do you understand this halachah?” he asked the questioner. When the person said yes, he answered, “So you agree that the associations work, but for you it only works for aveirah.”

If a person is looking for kedushah and for the Shechinah, when he sees techeiles, he’ll see the sky, and he’ll see the kisei hakavod. It all depends on what your ratzon is: What you’re looking for, that’s what you’ll see.

Last week, I attended a chasunah, and I looked around at the beginning of the seudah and counted how many settings there were on the men’s side. As I did that, it hit me that although I have been zocheh to attend many weddings, never before did I count the number of seats. What changed? Baruch Hashem, we have the zechus to be preparing for my daughter’s upcoming wedding, so it’s on my mind to think about how many settings should be prepared at a wedding. Therefore, when I saw the tables at this wedding, I saw them differently, because I had a new ratzon: I wanted to know this, so I saw it.

These are two lessons we can learn from the beginning and end of the parashah: one, that we need to take a deeper look at the things we see and hear, and learn from them; and two, that in order to do that we need to have the ratzon to shteig, to grow, to look deeper, and to become closer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu.

May Hakadosh Baruch Hu help us to truly learn the lessons we are meant to learn from what we see, and to reach higher and higher levels.

Gut Shabbos.

After Moshe Rabbeinu sends the meraglim, the passuk says, וַיָּבֹאוּ עַד נַחַל אֶשְׁכֹּל — they arrived in a place called Nachal Eshkol. The mefarshim wonder, what is the significance of the fact that they came to this place in particular? The Midrash says that this Nachal Eshkol is the place where Avraham Avinu’s friend Eshkol lived. He was one of Avraham Avinu’s three friends: Aner, Eshkol, and Mamrei.

The Minchas Ani, by the Aruch Laner, in his peirush al haTorah, explains that when Avraham Avinu was instructed to perform a bris milah, he went to ask his friends their opinion, and only Mamrei advised him to go ahead and do the bris milah. As a reward, Hashem later appeared to Avraham Avinu in Elonei Mamrei.

Aner and Eshkol felt differently, arguing, “Milah is a good thing, an instruction of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, but what will the goyim around you say?”

Eshkol, then, was of the opinion that however good and correct something is, you should still refrain from doing it because people won’t understand, and they’ll look down on you and think you’re strange for doing it. That was his advice.

Hakadosh Baruch Hu said that Eretz Yisrael is a good place and that Klal Yisrael would be successful there. But when the meraglim arrived in Eretz Yisrael, they heard the Canaanim talking about them with disdain and scorn, thinking of them as mere grasshoppers: וַנְּהִי בְעֵינֵינוּ כַּחֲגָבִים וְכֵן הָיִינוּ בְּעֵינֵיהֶם. In the meraglim’s view, although it was good for Klal Yisrael to enter Eretz Yisrael, the fact that the Canaanim looked down on them was a reason not to do what was right. They were guilty of exactly the same mistake as was Eshkol, in his advice to Avraham Avinu, and the passuk therefore stresses that they arrived at Nachal Eshkol — the place that represents this opinion, which was mirrored in the advice of the meraglim that Klal Yisrael should not enter Eretz Yisrael, because of the way other people will look at them and think about them.

What’s the truth?

The Double Nisayon

The Sefer Hachinuch teaches, in the hakdamah, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu created a very big, wide world, but the best part is always only a small portion. The world spans huge expanses of land, but there are only certain small areas, which Chazal term “idis” — a good investment, arable land. Similarly, of all the many nations of the world and the billions of people Hakadosh Baruch Hu created, Am Yisrael is small in number. And Eretz Yisrael is but a tiny speck on the globe, but Hakadosh Baruch Hu invested it with so much kedushah, making it the correct place for Klal Yisrael. Ignore the fact that most people in the world don’t understand us and look down upon us, urges the Sefer Hachinuch. That doesn’t make a difference, because that which is meaningful and important is only the small minority. The tiny nation of Klal Yisrael has the ability to be better and different from the rest of the world, and especially for them Hakadosh Baruch Hu created Eretz Yisrael, which, tiny as it is, is better and different from any other land, the idei idis of the world. And therefore, it is very befitting that Klal Yisrael should go to Eretz Yisrael, in spite of the way the world looks at it.

The meraglim  said, however: “Look at how the nations of the world look at us! It’s not worth going to Eretz Yisrael.”

This was the point of contention between the ten meraglim and Yehoshua and Kalev. The Torah says, וִיהוֹשֻׁעַ בִּן נוּן וְכָלֵב בֶּן יְפֻנֶּה חָיוּ מִן הָאֲנָשִׁים הָהֵם הַהֹלְכִים לָתוּר אֶת הָאָרֶץ, and the simple meaning of this passuk is that they were the only ones to survive. The Gemara teaches, however, that the words חָיוּ מִן הָאֲנָשִׁים indicate that Yehoshua and Kalev received the portion in Eretz Yisrael that was destined for the other meraglim. R’ Aharon  זצ”לand others wonder, what was the significance of this schar, and how was it a middah k’neged middah reward?

The answer is that Yehoshua and Kalev experienced a double nisayon in precisely this point of resisting the concern of “what are other people going to say.” Not only did they have to grapple with the Canaanim and the nations looking down upon them, and advise the Yidden to resist world opinion by entering Eretz Yisrael, they also had to resist the opinion of the other ten meraglim. Yehoshua and Kalev had to be so convinced that their path was correct that they were able to muster the fortitude to maintain their view in spite of the opinion of the other ten meraglim. And since these other meraglim made it more difficult for Yehoshua and Kalev to stand up for their conviction, they were rewarded with the portions of those meraglim, whose opinions they had to ignore.

Meriting the Extra Reward

As Klal Yisrael endures thousands of years of galus, our nisyonos become greater and greater, and we must continually struggle against the concern of “mah yomru habriyos — what will other people say about us?” What we need to remember is: If I know that this is right, if this is what the halacha tells me to do, then I lift my head up high and I do it, regardless of what the rest of the world thinks. Not only does their opinion make no difference, we’re actually going to get more s’char — חָיוּ מִן הָאֲנָשִׁים — proportional to the number of people who tried to discourage us or thought that we should have done otherwise.

This is a concept that we find throughout the Torah. For instance, Yaakov Avinu comes back to his brother Eisav and tells him: עִם לָבָן גַּרְתִּי וָאֵחַר עַד עָתָּה. R’ Yaakov Kamenetsky זצ”ל explains that Yaakov was saying, “I lived with Lavan, but I didn’t change my opinion an iota because of the way he looked at me, nor am I going to change anything because of what you, Eisav, might think of me.” Yaakov then adds, in his message to Eisav, וַיְהִי לִי שׁוֹר וַחֲמוֹר.

The Brisker Rav used to relate a chassidishe pshat: עִם לָבָן גַּרְתִּי, I lived with Lavan for twenty years. How did I survive? How did I keep my hashkafah straight? How did I do everything the way Hashem wanted it to be done in spite of the influence of Lavan? The answer is, וַיְהִי לִי שׁוֹר וַחֲמוֹר – I looked upon him as though he was an ox or a donkey.

A person ignores the opinion of an ox or a donkey, because he understands that these animals are not blessed with intelligence and cannot dictate our decisions, and that is the way I looked at Lavan. If he doesn’t see the light and doesn’t understand what Hakadosh Baruch Hu really wants of me in this world, then he’s just an ox or a donkey.

Reframing Alexander’s Question

The Gemara (Tamid 32) relates that Alexander the Great came to Eretz Yisrael, and when he met the zekeinim there he asked them, “Who is called a chacham by you Jews?” They answered him: איזהו חכם הרואה את הנולד. The mefarshim note that Alexander was the one who asked the question, so the answer should seemingly have been: הרואה את הנולד. Why did the zekeinim have to repeat the question, asking איזהו חכם, before giving their answer?

The answer, say the mefarshim, is that there was a subtle, but crucial difference in their rephrasing of the question. Alexander didn’t ask who is a chacham; he asked, “Who is called a chacham?” His definition of a chacham depends on how people view the person: Who is recognized as a chacham in this country?

When the zekeinim answered him, they redefined the question — because to Klal Yisrael, it makes no difference what people call a chacham, or whether people understand something to be right or wrong. Alexander’s question is not a question at all. To us, the question is – who is intrinsically a chacham? That’s the way we approach wisdom. Once that question is asked, the answer is: הרואה את הנולד. It might not always be popular to be הרואה את הנולד; you might not be called a chacham, but you will be a chacham.

When Chananiah, Mishael, and Azariah answered Nevuchadnezzar, they said,  למלכא נבוכדנצר  — referring to him both as an individual and as the king. The Midrash wonders: Why did they address him with this double title, Nevuchadnezzar and the king? The Midrash explains that they were telling Nevuchadnezzar, “You have two titles. If you want us to pay taxes, keep the law, and follow your instructions, in that regard you are our king, and we must obey you. But if you want us to forgo any part of our Yiddishkeit, then in our eyes you’re not called a king anymore, you are merely Nevuchadnezzar, a simple man on the street. You’re only the king inasmuch as you conform with what the Torah demands of us.”

The Chofetz Chaim cites the Midrash that relates that when Eliyahu Hanavi was going with R’ Yehoshua ben Levi, they saw people standing in line to buy meat, and the people thought they were buying good, healthy meat, but they were really buying moldy dogs’ meat. “What you see is a mashal for what is happening in this world,” Eliyahu told R’ Yehoshua ben Levi. “There can be lines of people who want to buy something, thinking it is chashuv and believing that this is the way the world should be run. But if you have the right eyes, you’ll see that what they’re pursuing is moldy dogs’ meat, not healthy meat.”

When Hakadosh Baruch Hu wanted to appoint Moshe Rabbeinu as leader, Moshe responded, שְׁלַח נָא בְּיַד תִּשְׁלָח — “Don’t send me to be the savior of Klal Yisrael. Send the one who You are going to send many hundreds of years in the future, the person who will be the leader of Klal Yisrael.” He was referring to Rabbi Akiva, since he knew through nevuah how great Rabbi Akiva would be. What was so special about Rabbi Akiva that Moshe Rabbeinu said Hashem should send him to lead Klal Yisrael out of Mitzrayim?

A Message from a Donkey

The Midrash relates that until Rabbi Akiva was forty years old, he did not learn any Torah. When his wife, Rachel, told him to go learn, he replied, “If I go and learn, people will laugh at me — I’m forty years old and I don’t know anything.”  In response, she took a donkey and made it look ridiculous, and sent the donkey into the main street. The first day, people laughed when they saw the donkey. The second day, they laughed again. But by the third day, the sight was no longer spectacular, and people stopped paying attention to it. Rachel then turned to Rabbi Akiva and said, “What do you care? For one day, two days, people will laugh at you and talk about you. After that, you’ll become a talmid chacham.” Propelled and encouraged by the proof Rachel had shown him, Rabbi Akiva went to learn. At first, he sat and learned alef-beis, until eventually he became the great Rabbi Akiva.

When Moshe Rabbeinu said שְׁלַח נָא בְּיַד תִּשְׁלָח, he was expressing that he could see that there would be a leader of Klal Yisrael whose whole essence and greatness would be built upon ignoring what people would say about him. “This is what Klal Yisrael needs,” he told Hashem. But Hashem knew that the generation of the Midbar needed Moshe Rabbeinu to be their later, while the later generations would need Rabbi Akiva. Since we have gone into galus and are living among the nations of the world — for 2000 years now, we need Rabbi Akiva as our leader, the leader whose motto is, “It doesn’t make a difference what people think, you need to do what’s right.”

Rabbi Akiva himself said, “Sheli v’shelachem, shelah” — whatever I have and whatever my talmidim have, it all comes from my wife. She’s the one who understood that when something is right, you follow your principles and do what’s right, regardless of what people might think about you. Indeed, Rabbi Akiva is the one who says (Shabbos 25) that a rich person is someone who has a good wife. His wife is the one who explained to him and convinced him that this incredible middah is what Klal Yisrael needs.

We know from the Yerushalmi in Peah that Rabbi Akiva would confer with his wife at each stage; before he became a manhig, he consulted with her. She was the one who understood what Klal Yisrael needs in a leader, and what message we need to internalize in order to survive 2000 years of galus.

The passuk says (Mishlei 14:2), הוֹלֵךְ בְּיָשְׁרוֹ יְרֵא ה’ — a person who goes in his just way is the one who fears Hashem, and the Vilna Gaon explains this as follows. All the millions and billions of people in the world around us might not understand what we’re doing, and might have their own opinion about what we’re doing, but if a person keeps the 613 mitzvos because he knows it’s the right thing to do — as implied in the possessive form ofהוֹלֵךְ בְּיָשְׁרוֹ , he is the true yerei Hashem.

This was the nisayon that the meraglim faced, and for overcoming this nisayon by ignoring what the meraglim and the Canaanim had to say, Yehoshua and Kalev earned their great reward of חָיוּ מִן הָאֲנָשִׁים.

May Hakadosh Baruch Hu grant us the foresight and courage to understand that “what will people say” does not determine what we should do; rather, we follow what Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants from us, and in that way we, too, will merit the reward of חָיוּ מִן הָאֲנָשִׁים — that every bit of difficulty along the path will become a source of additional reward and hatzlachah for us.

Gut Shabbos.

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