Dear friends,
How are you managing with the war? For a change, I don’t mean the war against the Hamas in Gaza. I mean the war that the parshah hints at. The narrative of the parsha’s beginning tells about a tragic situation.
A man is at war. He finds himself attracted to a beautiful woman, and the Torah isn’t going to tell him to “just say no” – it says that he can have her, but he must take her home, let her mourn her distance from her entire world – her parents, her belief system that we assume to be idolatrous.
She has to grow her nails (which in that era was seen as unkempt), cut off her hair, and remove the exotic clothing. After the initial time, she is offered the opportunity to either convert or to be returned to the country from which she came.
This narrative tells you about how the Torah addresses itself to real people who are caught up in real situations where they can't bridge the gap between the part that demands immediate gratification and the part of him that wants decency. Still, you may be left wondering why the eternal Torah sees this very particularized response to a situation that the vast majority of Jews in exile will never face as being one that we all must study.
Ohr HaChaim provides two glimpses into what is happening below the surface. The two “characters in the play”, the soldier and the woman he takes back to a land that is foreign to her in every sense of the world teach you two very different but relevant messages.
THE WOMAN
Even before the world began its entrance to reality, Hashem created the souls of the future Jews. As time moved on, He chose to put some of these pre-destined Jewish souls into non-Jewish bodies. That means some people will never feel totally comfortable in their own skin. This spiritual restlessness can take him in various directions. An example of that was Senator Daniel K. Inyoue.
He was a native of Hawaii, and until the moment Hashem led him in a direction he had never imagined, he had never met a Jew. In the course of a long hospitalization as a consequence of a serious injury he suffered as a member of the American forces in WW2, he ended up in the hospital for a long time. He had never met a Jew, but he heard plenty about us. The Jews are crooked, clannish, cheap, etc.
This caricature didn’t match the Jewish doctors he met in the hospital. He did the serious reading that a serious seeker would make in that circumstance, and ultimately considered conversion. He didn’t take that step – he couldn’t bring himself to face what that would do to his family. He did, however, resolve to keep the 7 Noachide laws, to serve Hashem in whatever way he could, and to be of service to His people whenever possible.
Years passed, and he ended up in a high-profile position in the American senate. He kept his word. Making a long story short, he is the one who midwifed the foreign aid that made the Neve campus possible.
Hashem was the shadchan between him and the Jewish doctors in Honolulu.
The woman in the Torah’s narrative also was introduced to Him and His Torah. It didn’t come about by means she had chosen. It was chosen for her. Her tragedy ended up being the source of her soul finally breaking out of its prison.
WHAT DOES HER LIFE HAVE IN COMMON WITH YOUR LIFE?
The queen of Sheba asked Shlomo HaMelech “Now that Hashem finished the act of creating the universe, what does He do all day?” The wisest of men answered, “He makes shidduchim”. She replied anyone could do that, and arranged a large number of her male servants to marry her female slaves.
The next morning, hatzalah would have had their hands busy (if they only existed at the time…). There were acts of violence and heavy doses of unbridled fury. Taking the story to a deeper place, Hashem is always making shidduchim, between you and your life circumstances. You are “introduced” to His world via your birth parents, and move on via the shidduch between you and your potentials and your environment these shidduchim (unlike the ones made by the Queen of Sheba) are done for your benefit.
You won’t see the shidduch as it comes into fruition (could Inouye had known when he was wounded where this would take him in his life?). What that tells you is that you can learn to notice the shidduch and to question where it can lead. The 13 attributes of mercy are descriptions of what Hashem’s motivation in his hashgachic interactions with His world really are.
He is always there, past present and future, which is what the first middah tells you – He is eternally compassionate. The second middah, which is also alluded to by the second invocation of His name is to tell you something very deep. Hashem never changes. He is compassionate even after we sin, He is still the One who Is Was and Will be full of outpouring mercy. All the shiduchim are means by which He gives you the key to making maximum use of each individual second of your life.
THE MAN
Is fighting what the Torah defines as a “millchemet reshut” a war that it’s not mandated as an obligation according to the Torah. A mandatory war is one fought for the taking Eretz Yisrael or defending it. An optional war can be, for instance, a pre-emptive war. Why fight a war you don’t have to? This narrative talks to you about the war of you against you, which is fought in the world of dealing with things that are permitted.
Ramban teaches that the mitzvah of “Be Holy” means even when you deal with the coarser issues of life, don’t be a glutton on kosher food or a drunkard on kosher wine. And now (drum role), he says, “Don’t drown in materialism.” This is not a commandment given to make you feel choked. It is to free you to discover other kinds of happiness.
The woman in the story is a symbol of the yetzer hara, who is accessible, exotic, and somehow different the “ordinary” women. What is the remedy? De-glamorize it (get rid of the exotic clothing) strip your heart of imagery that translates into never facing the limiting and somewhat false image of you trapped by rigid system, forgetting that the One who made this system loves and knows you better than you will ever know or love yourself.
You may have a moment of truth hundreds of times throughout your life. The soldier is told “Bring her home” – take your yetzer hara to shul for a shiur, take it to your kitchen when you are saying a brachah on challah. Make it part of what you are doing in your stay on the planet.
If you can touch the part of you that knows Hashem’s rachamim when you feel overwhelmed by His mitzvot, it will give you the strength to make good choices.
Love,
Tziporah
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