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You’re A Group
In Behaaloscha we learn that the Levi’im entered the service at age 25. In Devarim it states that they started at 30. Rashi explains that they arrived to learn the ropes at 25, but began actual service at 30.
He adds a significant postscript; ‘This is the source that a student who fails for five years should accept that study is not his thing’. (Gemarah)
Five years is a maximum – if you cannot make out even after five years, give up. But surely a quick study learned faster than that, perhaps in only a year. Were all Levi’im dopes – spending the full five years trying?!
The answer is that the pace was set for the dullest Levi possible, who took five years! (Five is the limit. If it doesn’t go in five, it won’t go in ten either. Study is just not for him…)
Why? Shouldn’t the median or average student set the pace? Why was the pace set by the slowest pupil??
Perhaps the answer is that when strangers have different needs, lets say how high the air conditioning should be on a flight, we tend to go with the average. These people have no connection with each other. Each one wants the air-conditioning at a different level. It makes sense to compromise and put the temperature in the middle, or to go by what most people want. The rest can suffer a bit.
However when a family going for a walk together, who sets the pace? The slowest person. Why does the whole family wait up for one guy? Because they are a family, who care for each other. They need to make sure that everyone is included, even the slowest.
Levi’im were brothers; they waited up for their slowest one.
The lesson here is to change our outlook: we ought not to be antagonists elbowing each other for position. Rather, we are family, each of us concerned that the next guy makes it.
Go the slow pace, let no one get left lost…
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Parental Responsibility
Moshe to Hashem; “Have I born these folk that You say to me ‘Carry them in your bosom’?”
The clear inference seems to be that indeed, a father must ‘carry’ his children, i.e. provide for them. Yet in Shulchan Aruch (Yore Deah 71:1) a person is required to provide for his children until the age of 6 only as a Rabbinic obligation. On the basis of this reference, why isn’t it Biblical?
One suggestion is that parents must provide for their children even if they are independently wealthy. Perhaps that is Rabbinic. If they are in need, then he is required to provide for them on a Biblical basis.
Any thoughts?
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Shedding Light On Hashem
The Menorah’s lights all faced center. Why? Isn’t lighting more effective focused outwards?
The answer is that by being deliberately ineffective, we demonstrate how the Menorah is not lit for light. For Hashem does not need our light. (Rashi)
So why light it at all?
One thought is that we light in honor, like candles at a well-lit simcha. The candles are not there for light, but rather for ambiance.
Another suggestion is that Hashem is the source of inspiration and spiritual light. Lighting down on earth primes the system, enabling wisdom to flow from above down to us. So the Menorah is not for actual light, but a metaphor for spirituality. We light the Menorah, but its not to see by.
A third approach: The Medrash compares lighting the menorah to a king who invites himself over to a poor friend for lunch. The friend prepares his best, but it isn’t much; he has set out earthenware lamps for the meal.
The king’s servants walk in and are scandalized by the homely decor. They set out golden lamps instead, as fit for the king. The host is ashamed: his efforts are not worthwhile. The king arrives, notices, and immediately has his fancy lamps removed. He declares he will use no lamps other than his host’s.
Hashem is light incarnate, but in His Love, He disregards His light, rather choosing our seven little lamps instead.
This Medrash gives us a handle to our dilemma; on the one hand, the light we offer is unworthy of Hashem. We need to know this. On the other hand, Hashem specifically chose our meager light. What to do?
So we light our Menorah, but take care to demonstrate that we really don’t think our light is appropriate. We light with the flames towards the center, showing that our light is unnecessary.
It is poetry of devotion and love; we praise Him while yet he insists that He needs us.
It goes a bit deeper: In the symbolic tension between our recognition that Hashem does not need our light and His request that we provide Him with light, is this paradox; Hashem chose to need our service. So He DOES need us, but not that He would be otherwise lacking.
In other words, its not all a charade. We do count. He needs us. Really. But only because He chose to!!!!
This guides our attitude towards Mitzvos: we are gifted with the privilege to serve Hashem. He does not need our service. We do!!
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Real Assets
Those impure at the bringing of the Pessach demanded a second chance to bring the Korban. They were free of obligation, prevented by no fault of their own. Why did they seek obligation??
Mitzvah are our assets. A Mitzvah missed, is lost for good. The spiritual property we possess last with us forever, our only real goods.
These people refused to accept a loss for all eternity. Let’s take heart, and copy them!
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Talking Before Anger
Hashem told Aharon and Miriam they had sinned by slandering Moshe, then ‘Hashem became angry with them and left’.
Hashem FIRST explained their sin, then was angry with them. (Rashi)
The lesson is decency: the fellow on the receiving end isn’t confused as to what it was all about. It’s important to express oneself and give feedback.
The Shlah explains Rashi a bit differently: mistakes are forgivable; we all do them. But only when they are admitted and apologized for.
Aharon and Miriam ought to have apologized when they heard their mistake, as Dovid Hamelech certainly did, and all would have been forgiven. When they didn’t, then Hashem grew angry with them.
This too, is an important lesson: in dealing with Hashem or one’s fellow – admit mistakes and apologize!
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Having Second Thoughts
The Torah accuses the Jews of having said ‘why did we leave Egypt?’. (11:20) In fact they merely remembered the fish and meat they ate in Egypt and asked ‘who can feed us meat?’. Did they regret leaving Egypt?
Rashi suggests that they wanted out. Talk about meat was a tactic calculated to get everyone focused on their lack, and regret leaving Egypt.
We suggested that if someone is convinced that something is good for them, say they are completely committed to living in France, problems tend to dwindle and disappear. ‘Yes, there are some radical elements, but overall things are great’, they say.
Complaining means that with regard to the subject under complaint – food, in our case – they regret the current situation. The Jews regretted leaving Egypt.
Torn between the benefit of freedom and the enjoyment of steak, – for personal opportunity it was a win to leave Egypt, but on food it was a loss – they were in conflict. Food says; ‘Why did we leave?’
Hashem’s point was not that the Jews were evil, but that in one aspect – on one level – the Jews had failed. Its not an allover account; rather each part exists independently.
A one-subject sinner has failed too…
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Its All One!
The Torah tells that when lighting the Menorah, the Kohen must ensure that the seven lights face the center. And the Menorah was made by beating out a lump of gold into a Menorah.
Is this pertinent here? What’s the connection?
Perhaps the two are the same idea – seven lights are all connected, and they all face their center. And the seven branches too, are all an organic One, beaten out from the very same piece.
The Menorah represents wisdom. The Gemarah instructs one who aspires to wisdom to pray in the direction of the Menorah. And there are many forms of wisdom, each its own paradigm.
Psychological wisdom dictates other action than economic wisdom does, and so on.
The Jewish belief is that all wisdom comes from Hashem. It is an algorithm for interpreting the world. There is an ultimate underlying unity to them all, and in the final analysis they only compliment each other, not contradict.
This is represented by the Menorah – the branches all emanate from the same place and therefore the flames all burn as one. For there must be cosmic unity.
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Beaten, Yet Not Beat
The Menorah was specified to be made of beaten gold. Yet at the conclusion of the parshah Rashi comments on the unusual phrase; ‘as Hashem commanded Moshe, so did he make the Menorah’, that the Torah does not say exactly Who made the Menorah. Indeed, explains the Midrash, the pasuk means that as Hashem commanded Moshe, so did Hashem create the Menorah.
What happened? Moshe did not understand how to make it and so Hashem instructed him to throw the gold into the fire, and the Menorah miraculously emerged.
The question is how the provision of Miksheh, that the Menorah be of beaten gold, was accomplished. Was it beaten in the fire??!?
One suggestion was that the provision of Miksheh seems strange; the obvious way of working with gold is to melt it in fire, and form it while soft with a mold, as Aharon did with the eigel. Why bang it out??
Perhaps it was because it was important for the Menorah to be exactly one kikar of gold. When building a mold it is very difficult to gauge what will be the final amount of metal needed to fill it. Therefore it needed to start with a kikar and be worked out of that kikar.
If this is the operating principle in mikshah, then being banged out is not important in itself, just that the amount of gold be strictly preserved. So by throwing it into the fire where Hashem formed the Menorah this was accomplished just as well.
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Its Pessach Again!
The Chinuch explains that of all mitzvos, only for the Pessah did the Torah grant a second chance, because the Exodus is important to remember.
Why? Our account of Creation – that the world was created ex nihilo – is counter to scientific explanation. Logically we cannot accept that Hashem acted outside of natural law. However, splitting the Yam Suf is outside of natural law too. If we review that which we know – that Hashem can override and countermand natural law at will, – we can also accept that Hashem created the world in six days.
That Hashem created this world provides the basis for Judaism, our heeding His directive. Therefore it is so important to keep the memory of the Exodus, because it allows for Creation.