Long Form Thank You
Bringing Bikkurim , the first fruit, to the Beis Hamikdash entails a speech. The donor reads a lengthy text – essentially the Pessach Haggadah, – recounting all Hashem has done him, starting all the way back with grandpa Avraham. Why not just thank Hashem for the fruit, short and sweet?
You receive a shirt as a gift. Is it appropriate to thank for one sleeve? No. The sleeve is part of the total article: the shirt. Thanking for the sleeve would be denying the shirt, an ingratitude. So with thanking Hashem. We do thank for specifics, but if those specifics are part of His general caring for us, we need to recognize and thank for the whole.
(When is it appropriate to focus on the now, today’s gift, and when do you take the long view? I don’t know. Maybe general etiquette when thanking a friend might direct us on how to thank Hashem.)
Its like the guy always lending a hand and doing a hundred small favors. When we get an excuse to thank him, do we focus only on the occasion he is being honored for, or do we go all out? Closer to home, do we appreciate today’s dinner, or thank our wife for a lifetime of care, which this dinner is the latest small segment of…??
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Deep Stones
The Jewish people wrote the Torah on twelve stones and set them into the Yarden bed. Afterwards they unearthed a second set from the river-bed, wrote the Torah on them, and set them up at Har Eival. (A third group was set up at Gilgal) Why set stones at the bottom of a river? Who sees them there?
One of the kinderlach answered that someone will eventually dive down and find them. He will wonder how they got there, and the miraculous passing of the Jews’, walking through the Jordan river on dry land, will be publicized.
Another child suggested that as the Egyptians will be going down to drown, they will read the Torah written there on the stones, and repent before death. (The dates and location are a wee bit off, but the thought is magnificent!).
One suggestion is that Torah is compared to water. The Torah submerged represents total submergence in Torah. The Rekanti expresses the thought that our survival in Eretz Yisroel is unnatural, solely in the Torah’s merit. We symbolize our total commitment for – and our total dependence on – Torah by publicly writing the Torah in Eretz Yisroel at the first second possible; not even waiting to cross, we hurried to accept the Torah right in middle of the river!
The moral: keep aware that living in Israel needs to be merited and earned. That thought may change your life.
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Yes! We Are Responsible!
We declare our fulfillment of Maaser and Tzeddakah: ‘[we]… have finished giving our Maaser to the Levi, stranger and widow, and they have eaten in your cities and were satisfied’.
Does their eating have to do with us?? For all we care, they may trash our gift. Why not say only: ‘We have given our Maaser’?
Some people view Maaser as money not theirs, but merely a trust. They give it out like a gabbai tzeddakah, an administer of funds. This is admirable, and shows great nobility of spirit. However, its untrue. The Torah indicates that I’m indeed responsible that the poor man eat lunch today. It’s my business. True, my responsibility is limited; I need not pay out all my money in feeding the poor, only one tenth. But that tenth is my own money, given in actualization of my responsibility. And that is why we declare: I have caused the poor to eat their fill. Because that’s my job. It is my duty and obligation.
This is the message here: we are responsible for the poor.
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Being Happy In Life
“…be happy with all the good Hashem grants you!” [- the Torah’s comment upon bringing Bikkurim]. Doesn’t it depend? If this was a bad year for crops, what is there to be happy about?
There still is very much to be glad for. One can, and ought, be joyful with whatever he has. In fact, if you want success in life, you had better, for Happiness is a choice.
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Crime And Punishment
Why are there only 14 pesukim of reward for keeping the Torah but there are 64 pesukim of punishment if we don’t? Why aren’t they at least equal? (Hey, what about positive reinforcement?!)
Some answers are;
A. Its easier to list things that go wrong. For instance, Sight has one form: that our eyes see fine. Eye trouble, however, has many variations. So the Torah covers all the good bases in fourteen pesukim, but needs sixty four to discuss the bad.
B. Fear vs. Gain. Threat always works better than reward. Saying “Do this and get a raise” works less than saying “Don’t do that or you will be demoted!”. A five cent demotion works better than a dollar raise. So the Torah goes long on threat, because it’s more effective.
C. Au contraire!! Gain motivates more than loss. People buy an E-z pass to save money, yet talk on their cellphones while driving, risking big loss. Why? Because punishment is less effective than reward. So the Torah needs to talk a lot of punishment to balance the few pesukim it talks reward. Fourteen of good equals sixty four bad.
D. People tend to take good for granted. Telling them that good will happen may be wasted; they think it will happen regardless. Bad news is always the Yad Hashem, people turn religious when something bad happens. So its easier to threaten, because bad is (supposedly!) Hashem’s sphere of activity.
E. People will one day claim proof that there is no G-d. They will not do so by asking “If there is a G-d, how was I, a worthless punk, granted such a nice car?” Rather it will be by asking “How can my uncle, such a nice man, die young?” The Tochacha is there to spell things out. Its a safety net; if you think that catastrophe proves there is no G-d, think again. Because G-d Himself foretold this very happening. We only need this mainly for bad things, for its the bad that makes people question G-d. That why the pesukim for bad are so many more.
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Either – Or
‘Instead of that which you did not serve Hashem with happiness and good-heartedness amidst abundance, you will serve enemies that Hashem will send upon you in hunger and thirst and lack, who will place an iron yoke upon your neck until you are destroyed’
The Torah is making an Either-Or point here; we can never be completely free. Either we serve Hashem, or we serve our enemies. We may choose our master. And by the way, if you serve Hashem, He treats His servants well; you will have abundance. Whereas your enemies….
The moral is that if we don’t like our situation perhaps check who we serve. Have we been choosing the wrong master?
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‘Today you have become a nation unto Hashem!’
Rashi comments that when Moshe entrusted the Levi’im with the Torah, the Jews complained: “Today they are mere trustees, but tomorrow they will claim the Torah is theirs and they are in charge of it. We refuse to lose control of the Torah!” When Moshe heard that, he rejoiced: ‘Truly, today you have become Hashem’s nation!’
The Jews have been keeping the Torah for forty years. What changed now?
Rabbi Chaim Mintz shlit”a suggested that the test of where one truly stands is not by how many mitzvos one performs. Its by what one feels when he misses a mitzvah. Does he feel pain and loss, or say ‘Just as well!’ In other words, do we see Mitzvos as our destiny, or are they a burden and responsibility, which we are happy to be rid of? When the Jews protested losing the Torah, only then were they truly Hashem’s nation.
How do you see Mitzvos??
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You And Him
“And you will eat your own offspring, the flesh of your sons and daughters that Hashem has granted you…” [-from the dire curses aimed at sinners.] Why mention that Hashem has granted us those children – does it add to the plot?
I posed the question to Rabbi Emanuel Feldman shlit”a and he suggested that having and raising children successfully are particularly associated to Hashem’s Blessing, because so many people have difficulty with them. They are not like a crop that one simply plants and it grows. The Pasuk emphasizes that we will lose this gift.
I suggest that the Torah points to the contrast: Hashem wants only good for you – he grants you children. You, however, go and lose them by sinning…
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Bearing Witness To G-d
When a man brings bikkurim to the Bais HaMikdash, he declares”I say today before Hashem, my god, that I have come to the land that Hashem promised my parents” Isn’t that a bit obvious -hopefully one knows where he lives?
A. We pointed out that knowing and internalizing are two different things. One can know, but not live on that knowledge. Here, we try to internalize this concept and really feel it to the depths of our souls. And to know it in a physical, earthly way, too, by holding the actual fruit, grown on the land.
B. Alternatively, one can live in this land his entire life, but always unsure of his possession. He is ever fearful that next year the non-Jews will destroy the Beis HaMikdash and exile him and his family. So we tell him here to get a grip on himself! You are here, living and enjoying this land. Please bear witness to that!
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Being As Kindly As Hashem
The Sefer haChinuch explains the mitzvah of going in Hashem’s path as to mean that one must be kind and merciful, as He is. And that one who does not work on improving his ways is in violation of this mitzvah.
The simple reading indicates that this is not like the mitzva of loving or fearing Hashem, which is relevant primarily when faced with a test or challenge, but rather it is a general mandate that one works on his own self development. This might explain why this mitzva is not considered one of the continuous ones, for even though it has no specific time, it is not a “be on your guard” mitzva, as those are.
What indeed are the legal parameters of this precept? Must one be involved on self development every day? Every minute? Does it depend on how much work one’s personality needs?