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Parsha Perspectives by Dovid baslaw

וידבר ה אל משה בערבות מואב על ירדן ירחו לאמר

Hashem spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab, by the Jordon, at Jericho, saying:

We are taught that the placement of the Parshiot (the weekly Torah portions) is not coincidental. Meaningful lessons can be derived from discovering the connections that exist between one Torah portion and the next. Last week’s Parshat Mattos concludes with the decision to grant the Jewish people’s newly conquered territory (located adjacent to the Land of Israel’s eastern border) to the tribes of Reuven and Gad. Immediately following, this week’s Torah portion, Masei, begins with a record of the stopping points that the Jewish people visited on their long journey from Egypt to Israel.

In an explanation of the positioning of these two Torah portions, the author of a commentary entitled “Tosefet Brachah” presents a parable regarding a king that had ten estates to pass on as an inheritance to his twelve sons. Dreading any conflict between his heirs that would result by unevenly dividing the estates, the king chose to wait until he would acquire two more suitable pieces of property. In this way each son would receive an equal portion, and all would be satisfied.

Upon the exodus from Egypt, our Rabbis similarly describe Hashem as saying, ‘If I bring the Jewish people via a direct route, leading them immediately into their land; the portions of Israel as they now stand cannot be evenly distributed amongst the tribes. Animosity will most certainly develop between them. I will therefore detain the Jewish people in the wilderness and take them from one station to the next, until they will be emotionally and physically ready to conquer additional territory outside of Israel. The tribes who find the additional territory favorable will be granted permission upon request to settle there. The rest will then be able to receive their inheritance through what will then be a fair distribution of the land. Peace will thereby be preserved’.

There is a message in the above parable that could be applied to our own personal journey in life. Reaching our life’s destiny may often be filled with unwanted delays, but the added time that those delays entail might very well be a manifestation of a deliberate and purposeful plan. What may seem like a long and drawn out process is in reality a design for the intended to take place at a deliberately planned time. This point is often seen in our own lives when reflecting upon the events (and obstacles) that led us to landing that “dream job”, finding our “bashert”, or even the perfect new home in just the right neighborhood. Closely observing the path that led us to the landmarks in our life enables us to see a master plan in operation, using past events as precidents.

The lesson found from the proximity of Parshas Mattos to Parshas Masei is indeed encouraging. While the journey called “life” may seem fraught with a long list of “setbacks”, perhaps those delays are really meant to lead us toward our destiny at just the right place and time. Ours is to honor and trust the process. return to top
Ozer Alport can be reached at  ozer@partnersintorah.org

talking points - parshas masei
Rabbi Elazar Meisels

1. Frequent Flier Elite Status

“These are the journeys of the Children of Israel, who left Egypt in organized groups under the leadership of Moses and Aaron.” 33:1

• These Are The Journeys - Why were these journeys recorded? To make the Almighty’s benevolence known. For, although He decreed to move them about and cause them to wander in the wilderness, do not say that they wandered and were moved about from journey to journey all forty years, and had no rest. For there are only forty-two journeys here and if you subtract fourteen, all of which took place during the first year, before the decree…Exclude further from there, eight journeys, which took place after Aharon's death…during the fortieth year, what you have is that throughout the thirty eight years, they took only twenty journeys. – Rashi

The forty years we spent in the desert prior to entering the Land of Israel were akin to a mini exile and contained important lessons to assist us in navigating the later exiles we would have to endure. Rashi points out one of those lessons. Although we were destined to visit a large number of places, Hashem sought to ease our burden by condensing the bulk of those stopovers into the first and last years of our sojourn. That way, we were able to establish some sort of permanent lifestyle even though we knew that we had additional journeys ahead. Similarly, throughout our long exile, Hashem has always tried to make our journey easier and more bearable for His children by allowing us to remain in foreign lands for hundreds of years at a time until we were driven out by our oppressors.

2. Travel Headaches

“Moses recorded their departures for their journeys by the mouth of Hashem; these were the departures for their journeys.” 33:2

• Their Journeys by the mouth of Hashem – The Torah stressed that Hashem told Moses to record these places because they, and their names, contain deep secrets of Torah. – Ramban (Rabbi Moshe ben Nachan, Nachmanides)

Typically, people behave worse when traveling than when in the comfort of their own home. The stress of the travel, coupled with their uncertainty over what they would encounter at their final destination, could have provided the Jewish people with ample excuses to behave in a less than impressive manner. Here the Torah hints to the fact that to the contrary, the Jewish people behaved toward one another in exemplary fashion throughout their travels. Everything they did during their journeys [with a few notable exceptions] was calculated to accommodate the “word of Hashem.”

3. Israel: Don’t Flatter Me

“You shall not pollute the land in which you live, for, the blood will pollute the land, and for the land there can be no atonement for the blood that was spilled in it, except through the blood of the one who spilled it.” - 35:33

• You shall not pollute the land – Even though there are sins that are easily the equal of homicide, the Torah speaks most strongly about the sin of bloodshed since it involves harming a fellow person and also destroys civilization. – Medrash HaGodol
• You shall not pollute the land – The words “you shall not pollute” in Hebrew, are “V’lo Sachanifu Ess Ha’aretz,” which translated literally mean, “You shall not flatter the land.” Since we’re speaking about bloodshed, this verse must refer to a form of bloodshed accomplished through flattery. This happens when one listens to Lashon Hara (evil gossip) about another person merely to please and flatter the speaker, or adds to the evil speech in an attempt to butter him up. – Chafetz Chaim (Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan, (1838-1933)

The Baal Akeidah (Rabbi Yitzchak Arama) writes that another way to cause the land to “flatter” is by allowing evildoers to escape unpunished because the land will have to continue to give forth produce even though the wicked are undeserving. This is a form of flattery because it makes it appear that the Land is more concerned with the honor of the wicked, than that of the Almighty. This, the verse says, is inexcusable and Hashem will not tolerate it. return to top
Rabbi Elazar Meisels can be reached at rabbimeisels@partnersintorah.org 

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One Fast Question Rabbi Leiby Burnham

Dear Rabbi,
My partner and I have been studying the Jewish calendar, and I have been pleasantly surprised to find that it contains a whole lot more than Hanukkah, Passover and the High Holidays. We learned about the two fast days that are found in the summer months and my partner just told me that there are another few sprinkled throughout the year. Now, I know that the fast days are on dates that bad things happened to the Jews, but I don’t really understand the concept of fasting. How does our abstention from eating relate to a tragedy that happened on that date thousands of years ago?
Thanks,
Diane C.

Diane,
It sounds like you’re gaining insight through your weekly learning into the rich spectrum of the Jewish calendar and how it speaks to the entire range of human emotion, from the most joyous moments to times of mourning.

In order to properly respond to your question, the first concept we need to look at in understanding fast days is how Jews view time. We don’t view it as a linear continuum starting back at the time of creation and then traveling forward. Instead we view our time as a circle with one year being a complete cycle. It is almost like a train line that goes around its route annually, stopping at the same stations every year.

Thus when we approach a Passover, we don’t see it as if we are just commemorating an event that happened thousands of years ago, but rather we see it as if our train just pulled up to the exact station our ancestors were at when they experienced the Exodus from Egypt. Jewish holidays are not meant for commemoration. Rather, they are times for re-experiencing the event that occurred. Every year on Passover we can tap into the powers of heavenly redemption, every Shavuot we can receive the Torah directly from G-d again, and so it is for every holiday.

The same holds true for the sad days in the calendar. When Tisha B’Av arrives, the day carries the same weight as if the Holy Temple is being destroyed on that day, in 2008. The same negative forces that prevailed 3319 years ago as our ancestors danced around a Golden Calf on the 17th of Tammuz are still there this year on the 17th of Tammuz. It is one of the train stops we wish we didn’t have to reach, but sadly, we still do.

When the train stops at a good location we try to re-experience it so that we can fortify ourselves with its power, as we see in the Passover Seder, sitting in the succah, etc. However, when we stop at a difficult stop, we try to combat the negative forces found there, the same ones that caused our ancestors to stumble many years ago.

What was it that caused them to fall? It was their focus on the physical world instead of the spiritual world, the temporal and ephemeral instead of the infinite and the divine. The root of all building comes from focusing on the spiritual because in that world everything we build lasts for eternity. The root of all destruction comes from focusing on the physical, a realm in which everything is decaying and nothing lasts forever.

We see this in the last admonition that Moses gives the Jewish people before he passes;

“And Jeshurun [Israel] became fat and rebelled; you grew fat, thick and rotund; and it [Israel] forsook the G-d Who made them, and spurned the Rock of their salvation.” (Deut. 32:15)

Moses warns the people than overindulging in the physical, which he symbolizes by the people becoming thick, is what causes them to rebel against G-d, to ignore the spiritual bounty He offers us.

The way to rectify overindulgence in the physical realm is through a marked disassociation with the physical realm, and one way we can accomplish this is through fasting. The goal however, is not simply that we should go hungry, but rather that through this disassociation with the physical, we should come to use that time to focus on the spiritual more intently and use the day to reclaim our spirituality. In this way we can regain the ground that has been lost at that station throughout the ages.

May we truly use our day of mourning properly, so that when Mashiach comes, all of our stations will be festivals!

Sincerely,
Rabbi Leiby Burnham
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Rabbi Leiby Burnham can be reached at rabbiburnham@partnersintorah.org

There is an important message that can be learned from the מַסָּעוֹת, journeys. People tend to think that whenever someone finds himself in a certain place he is vulnerable to any happenings that might occur there, and that those happenings are a direct result of his settling there.

Rabbi Leib Gurwitz says that the exact opposite is true: A person ends up at a specific place because certain things must take place there, as planned by Hashem's hashgachah (Divine Providence). As the verse states (33:2): וַיִּכְתֹּב מֹשֶׁה אֶת-מוֹצָאֵיהֶם לְמַסְעֵיהֶם עַל-פִּי ה' וְאֵלֶּה מַסְעֵיהֶם לְמוֹצָאֵיהֶם. The verse reverses the order of the two words מוֹצָאֵיהֶם, their goings forth, and מַסְעֵיהֶם, their journeys, to dispel the thought that their experiences (such as the lack of water in Marah, or the relatively luxurious situation in Eilim, with date trees and springs) were caused by the places in which they found themselves. Rather, their travels were caused by what was supposed to happen to them; because Hashem wanted these things to take place, He therefore planned for the people to get to those places. In other words, it was planned from the start that they would not have water in Marah, etc.

It is very important to realize that when a person moves from place to place and settles in a new environment, this will definitely have an impact on his future and his family's future. But this is not because he must deal with all the tests and difficulties of that place. Hashem decides what must occur, and arranges for the person to be where he must.

The Talmud states in Succah (53a): רַגְלוֹהִי דְּבַר אִינִישׁ אִינּוּן עָרְבִין בֵּיהּ לַאֲתַר דְּמִיתְבָּעֵי תַּמָּן מוֹבִילִין יָתֵיהּ, A person's feet are his guarantors; they bring him to the place where he must be, according to Hashem's plan.

Although Rashi explains that this is referring to the place where it is decreed that a person will die, the same idea is true with everything that happens to a person.

Many survivors of the destruction of Europe took strength from this idea. They realized that they had been saved and brought to safe shores for one reason only — to rebuild and rejuvenate Torah observance and allow it to flourish once again. return to top

Hey, I never knew that! By Ozer Alport

Amazing Insights About the Weekly Parsha   

Q: Although the Torah seems to require (36:6) the daughters of Tzelofchad to marry men from their father's tribe (Menashe), the Talmud (Bava Basra 120a) teaches that this wasn't a commandment but rather a piece of good advice that Hashem told Moses to give to them. Even so, the Torah testifies that although not obligated to do so, they followed Hashem's "advice" and each found a man from her father's tribe to marry. As the Torah is eternal and relates only that which is relevant, what lesson can we take from here?

A: Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin notes that one might think that it would be difficult to find an appropriate spouse if one's dating pool is artificially reduced by 11/12. We would therefore expect that at least some of Tzelofchad's daughters would feel forced to ignore Hashem's non-binding advice, especially when considering that the Talmud in Bava Basra (120a) teaches that all of them had already reached the age of 40. The Torah therefore emphasizes that no matter how limited they felt their options may be, each recognized that their match is arranged by Hashem, Who, through special Divine Providence brings it about. Each understood that the apparent reduction in the size of their dating pool needn't force them to remain single or to marry someone inappropriate. Following Hashem's advice allowed each one to restrict their dating pool … to their one pre-destined bashert!

Q: Rashi writes (35:14) that although 9½ tribes lived in the land of Israel proper and only 2½ tribes lived on the other side of the Jordan River, the Torah nevertheless required that the six cities of refuge be evenly divided between the two regions due to the fact that there were a disproportionate number of intentional murderers living on the other side of the Jordan. Of what relevance is the prevalence of intentional murderers to the cities of refuge, which only provide protection to those who kill accidentally and not to intentional killers?

A:Rabbi Yehuda Loew, known as the Maharal, answers this question in his work Gur Aryeh. He explains that in an area in which cold-blooded murder is a regular occurrence, the value for human life will automatically be diminished. Those who live there and constantly witness or hear about the deaths of innocent people will be affected in a negative way. Even as they consciously know that these heinous crimes are immoral and unjust, their subconscious will slowly be influenced, and they will no longer regard human life as the precious commodity that it is. As a result, although they won’t sink to the level of serial killers, they will no longer exercise the appropriate care when engaged in potentially dangerous activities. The inevitable result of this lack of caution will be an increase in the number of accidental murders, who will need to flee to the cities of refuge.

Ozer Alport can be reached at ozer@partnersintorah.org return to top

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