Choose life - for you and your offspring - Nitzavim
A look at the commentaries on what it means to choose life for ourselves and future generations..
We read in our Parasha:(30:15-20) ’See, I have placed before you today the life and the good, and the death and the evil..I call heaven and earth today to bear witness against you; I have placed life and death before you, blessing and curse; and you shall choose life, so that you will live, you and your offspring; to love Hashem your G-d, to listen to His voice and to cleave to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days, to dwell upon the land that Hashem swore to your forefathers..to give them’.
Rav Eliyahu Shlezinger comments:”In these psukim, we find the source for the concept of ‘choice’- but they are wondrous! Did the Torah need to advise us ‘to choose life’? Are we dealing with fools, so that we need to be concerned that they might not do so?
“No! The Torah here comes to teach us a major foundation of Jewish life, not of physical life and death, but of the essence and nature of life in this world, because ‘there is life, and there is life’.
“The Torah comes here to answer the question of questions: what is ‘the life’ that we are to choose, and it answers:’To love Hashem, to hear His voice..’.
“It admonishes us ‘to choose life, so that you will live, you and your offspring’.
“When we look around, we see, alas, the saga of families where the parents strayed slightly from the path of this ‘life’, and their children stray even further than they did; and their grandchildren then stray in ways that would not have even occurred to their grandparents, and may even be totally lost to our faith.
“This is what the Torah is here teaching: ‘choose life’, and what is this ‘life’? That of continuity, that ‘you’ live, and that so too will ‘your offspring’”.
Rav Moshe Feinstein teaches us how to ensure this:”Clearly the reference to ‘offspring’ is not to be understood literally, as the Torah already warned that, if we choose the wrong path, death will result.
“Rather, it comes to teach, that the choice of ‘life’ should be of a life that will influence and inspire our offspring. A person may himself fulfill all the Mitzvot, yet not inspire his offspring to do so; when his Mitzvah performance is without joy, and by rote, this will likely be the way of his offspring.
“This is not what the Torah wants of us! It wants our performance of Mitzvot and Torah study to be with great joy, to show that it is our greatest pleasure, and more joyous than any pursuits of this world; only then will we truly have fulfilled the Mitzvah of ‘you shall choose life’ - and only then ‘you will live, and your offspring’”.
The Abarbanel adds:”Though the Torah adjures us to ‘choose life’, the reason for doing so should not be solely ‘so that you live, you and your offspring’, but rather ‘to love Hashem, to listen to His voice, and to cleave to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days, to dwell upon the land’, because THIS is the purpose of life: ‘to dwell on the land’ so as to live this life, and merit to fulfill these objectives”.
Rabbeinu Yona posits that, although it might appear, as the literal wording suggests, that we are given free rein to choose between two courses, ‘life and the good, and the death and the evil’, in fact, there is a positive Mitzvah to ‘choose life’, because the Torah posits:’Choose life’!”.
Rav Gedalia Schorr adds:”Hashem granted us a great chesed, in commanding us ‘to choose life’, as he thereby sanctified us, and elevated by the kedusha of the Mitzvah, to assist us to ‘choose life’”.
The Ktav Sofer expounds on this:”if one chooses to do bad, there is no barrier to him carrying out his intent- in fact, our Sages teach that:’One who comes to do wrong, is assisted from Above’.
“However, conversely, when one ‘chooses life’, only the choice is in his hands; to carry it out, requires the help of Hashem. In the words of our Sages:’Without Hashem’s help, one could not abstain from transgression, nor could he carry out a Mitzvah completely’.
“This is why the Torah is careful to say ‘choose life’, as only the choice to do is in man’s power.
“However, if he truly chooses to do good, he will be assisted from Above- this is the meaning of our Sages reaching:’He who comes to purify, will be assisted from Above’”.
The Kli Yakar offers the following insight:”David Hamelech beautifully encapsulated our purpose in life:(Ps’ 34:13)’Who is the man who is eager for life who desires days to see good’: he yearns for ‘days’ - to live - so as ‘to see good’ - to study Torah and to do Mitzvot, as it says in our Parasha: ‘to love Hashem..to listen to His voice and to cleave to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days’”.
A timely parting message from Rav Schorr:”The Torah’s language here teaches that we must choose life, that is: to know that the ways of the Torah are ‘life’, and to truly feel that ‘they are our life’, as we proclaim.
“Knowing this is an important way to prepare for the Days of Judgement when we pray for ‘life’, to truly feel that this is life, as then, when we ask to be ‘inscribed in the Book of Life’.
“Our Holy Tomes teach that the heart of our plea on Rosh Hashanah for life, is to cleave to the Tree of Life, our holy Torah”.
2022 @ https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/360307
The wondrous mitzva - Vayeilech
Read what Torah luminaries say about Hakhel, the next to last mitzva in the Torah: the reasons for it, its timing and its effect
We read in our Parasha, of the wondrous Mitzvah that Moshe Rabbeinu commanded on his last day on earth:(31:10-12):
‘At the end of seven years, at the time of the Shmitta year, during the festival of Succot, when all Israel comes to appear before Hashem..in the place that He will choose, you shall read this Torah before all Israel, in their ears. הקהל: Gather together all the people..so that they will hear and so that they will learn, and they shall fear Hashem..and be careful to perform all the words of this Torah.’
The Sefer Hachinuch expounds that the שורש: the root of this Mitzvah, is that since all the essence of the nation of Israel is the Torah, and by it they are separated from all other peoples, it is apt that they should all assemble together, to hear its words. And when they wonder: What is this great gathering that they all assembled together? The answer will be: To hear the words of the Torah, which is our essence and our glory, and they will come, through that, to tell of its praises and majesty, and the desire for it, shall enter their hearts; and, because of this desire, they will learn to know Hashem, and merit His goodness’.
Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch comments:’The purpose of this Mitzvah is not to learn the Torah, as the Mitzvah to learn Torah binds each and every person in his daily way of life; rather, it is a Mitzvah which diverges from the regular regime, which recurs once every seven years, and has a different objective.
‘At the special time that calls for each person to unite with Hashen, the Shmitta year, before the people return to working the land, from which they had abstained during the Shmitta year, and during the festival of Succot, the festival which recalls to the people their long sojourn in the desert, when there was no agriculture and no commerce, only Hashem’s chesed and protection, as they are now about to re-start their life of agriculture and commerce.
‘This wondrous assembly will reinforce in their hearts that Hashem alone determines their fate and this will strengthen their awe of Hashen, and lead them to fulfill the supreme objective of all the Torah commandments:’To be careful to perform all the words of this Torah.’
Rav David Hofstedter adds:’The assembly of all the people to hear the words of the Torah from the King, comes to emphasize its supreme importance, and in its merit the people will come to fulfill the Mitzvah of learning Torah with greater enthusiasm and love- this is why the Mitzvah is called הקהל: gathering,as its main import is the gathering of all the people.
‘In this sense, it is a replication of the stand of Har Sinai, and this is alluded to by the language of the commandment closely resmbling that said at that stand.’
Rav Avigdor Nebenzahl sweetens this connection, commenting:’The Torah here is cognizant of the shortness of human memory, and therefore commanded this Mitzvah, so that every seven years we shpuld once again be witnesses to a kind of Matan Torah.’
The Abarbanel adds: ‘The Torah chose to command this reading only every seven years, and not each year, as, had the assembly taken place every year, even the impact of the King reading the Torah to all the people, would have been lessened- as the wise Shlomo Hamelch adjured:(Mishlei 25:17)’Visit your neighbour sparingly, lest he become sated with you, and hate you.
‘It therefore commanded that it occur once in seven years, and in the Shmitta year, when the people were not engaged in their own business affairs, and their food was miraculously provided by Hashem, they should perform this Mitzvah.’
Rav Yehonatan Eibeschitz contributes the following sage insight:’Why was the seventh year a year of Shmitta, of abstention from activity? Because in the preceding six years, the people were preoccupied with their work, and could not regularly devote time to Torah study; therefore the seventh year was declared a year of Shmitta, so they had time for regular Torah study in it.
‘However, this could lead them to think that they had learned enough Torah in the Shmitta year for their needs. Therefore, the Torah commanded them immediately after the Shmitta year: resume your Torah studies’.
Rav Zalman Sorotzkin adds a gem to explain why the Mitzvah of הקהל was to be performed only after the Shmitta year:’When Hashem wanted to instill His awe in the hearts of the people, especially those youngsters who had not seen His miracles with their own eyes, He chose the ‘appropriate time’ - just as, at Pesach, we are commanded to tell the story of the exodus from Egypt, when the matzah and maror are placed before us, to remind us of the miracles Hashem performed, to take us out of Egypt.
‘The end of the Shmitta year, when the people had left the land unworked for a whole year, and yet, as Hashem had promised, the crops that grew in the sixth year were miraculously sufficient for all their needs for the eight year, had the same impact.
‘With this before their eyes - the fulfillment of the miracle Hashem had promised- it was far ‘easier’ to ‘read this Torah in the ears of the people, so that they will hear and so that they will learn, and they shall fear Hashem..and be careful to perform all the words of this Torah’.
2022 @ https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/360569
No comments:
Post a Comment