Baruch Mizion 1O Parshas Devarim This week’s Sedra begins the fifth and final Sefer of Chumash. The main body of this Sefer consists of Moshe talking to Bnei Yisrael, giving them words of advice, of encouragement and of warning. He begins on Rosh Chodesh Shevat of the fourtieth year, which is approximately 5 weeks before Moshe’s life draws to a close. Moshe commences by reviewing the last 40 years, with reference to the mistakes that Bnei Yisrael made, as a means of ensuring they have learnt from those errors, before they enter Eretz Yisrael. Moshe, however does not begin by mentioning the sins directly, but instead the places where the sins took place. Rashi points out the lesson we can learn from Moshe, how sensitive he was, in that while he had to mention earlier transgressions, he did it as tactfully as possible to minimize embarrassment. But there is another lesson we can learn from Moshe. It is often painful to relive the past, especially a past that contains a string of actions we’d rather forget. Moshe, as kindly as possible, is telling Bnei Yisrael that reviewing past actions, (warts and all), is both important and helpful in improving our future. The Rebbe Reb Elimelech of Lijensk was very concerned about other people’s feelings. It’s said that every Friday afternoon he would review the week just past, to recall if he had said or done something untoward. If he felt he had, then before Shabbos came in, he would look for the relevant person, be they family or someone he barely knew, and beg for forgiveness. --------------------------------------- In Perek 1, Possuk 9-18, Moshe related how he stopped judging every case by himself, and instituted a system of judges at every level. It’s interesting to note that while in Shemos, this plan was suggested by Yisro, there is no mention of Yisro here in Devarim. The Malbim suggests that Yisro gave his advice before Mattan Torah, so there was no legal framework in place. Yisro advised Moshe to find intelligent and intuitive people who had the intellect to handle disputes using their own logic. But Moshe set up his system of judges after Mattan Torah, and while he utilized some of Yisro’s technical advice, the underlying approach was completely different. Moshe understood that to be a judge, one first had to accept that all decisions are made according to the Torah’s logic and not one’s own. In Possuk 15, it says, ‘ I appointed…..leaders of thousands, leaders of hundreds, leaders of fifties and leaders of tens’, which comes to 131 judges per 1000 people. Based on 600,000 people, that comes to a surprisingly large number of 78,600, and that figure is quoted by Rashi in Gemora Sanhedrin 18A. Ibn Ezra finds it hard to accept that so many judges were needed, after all, surely all of Bnei Yisrael weren’t constantly arguing, and he tries to explain the possuk in a less literal manner to come up with a much lower number. Others find it hard to avoid the wording in the possuk, and try to explain the very large number as including not only judges but also the police and court officials etc. ---------------------------------------- As we approach Tisha B’Av, I think we all know of the Gemora in Gittin 55B/56A which says Yerushalayim was destroyed as a result of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza. A certain man was making a banquet. He was a close friend of Kamtza but greatly disliked Bar Kamtza. By mistake the invitation went to Bar Kamtza who duly turned up. Despite his pleadings to be allowed to stay, the host insisted on ejecting Bar Kamtza from the party in front of everyone, embarrassing him, and to make things worse, none of the leaders of the community that were present spoke up in his defense. In his anger, Bar Kamtza went to the Romans with slanderous comments against Bnei Yisrael. It is a terribly sad episode with many obvious lessons for us. But there’s one question that’s been noted by several commentators, and that is, why is do we say ‘Yerushalayim was destroyed because of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza’ ? Why mention Kamtza ? He did nothing wrong, he was liked by all, and he was one person that definitely was not at the banquet because of the invitation mix-up. Perhaps there is a subtle lesson. Much as we try to like everybody, it doesn’t always work. There are, regrettably, fellow Jews whose actions really upset us, and indeed we should feel outrage at inappropriate behavior and make our feelings known, unlike the leaders at the banquet who kept quiet. But there is a tendency for us to generalize. When we disapprove of a few people, we carelessly criticize the whole group, and maybe that’s a form of Sinas Chinam (baseless hatred) that is hinted at by the inclusion of Kamtza, and that we need to learn to avoid. Shabbat Shalom Benny
Posted on: Fri, 12 Jul 2013 07:04:27 +0000