Reb Ginsbourg: Chukas

 

“Ascend o well - call out to it"

‘This is truly ‘a gift’ - as our parsha promises - to become like a well of flowing water - of Torah.’

We read in our Parasha, that Bnei Israel journeyed (21:16-20) ‘to the well - it is the well of which Hashem said to Moshe:’Assemble the people and I shall give them water.’

Then Israel sang this song:Ascend, O well’, sing to it! The well that the princes dug, that the nobles of the people excavated, through a lawgiver, with their staffs.

A gift from the Wilderness - the gift went to the valley, and from the valley to the heights, and from the heights to the field of Moab, at the top of the peak, overlooking the surface of the wilderness.’

Rashi comments:’Ascend! O Well’: From the stream, and bring up what you are to bring up. How do we know that the well informed them? For it says:’From there ..the well.

Was it (really) from there? Was not (the well) with them since the beginning of the forty years?

However, it descended to proclaim the miracles. Similarly,:’Then Israel sang this song’, was said at the end of forty (years) , but the well was given to them at the beginning of the forty years.

‘Why was it written here ( instead of earlier )? Because the subject ( of the song ) is explained in connection to what precedes it in the above text.’

The Midrash elucidates on the wondrous nature of this well:’This was how this well that was with Israel in the desert, like a rock full of cracks like a sieve,ascending with them to the heights, and descending with them to the ravines ; wherever Israel rested, it rested - in high places, against the opening of the Tent of Assembly, and the princes of Israel came, and surrounded it with their staffs, saying about it the song: ’Come up, O Well’, and its waters bubbled and ascended like a pillar above.

Each one drew by his staff, for his tribe, and each person for his family, as it says:’’Well that the princes dug."

It, too, circled the encampment, and watered the whole wilderness.

The Netziv proffers a reason, for the song only being sung at this time: They did not say Shira on this, till now, was because we do not pronounce a blessing on a miracle, until it has been fully completed, as we find regarding Shirat Hayam.

Therefore, all the time that they had not yet departed from the desert, and the need for the well remained, they were unable to say Shira - only when they departed, could they say this Shira.

The Ohr Hachaim Hakadosh comments: We need to know: this Shira, what was its nature; also, why was Shira not said on the manna, as it was here, on the water.

Perhaps this Shira was sung on the Torah, in which case we cannot criticise that generation why they did not say a new Shira, when the Torah was given to them as an inheritance, as our Shira was assuredly shirat haTorah, which is called ‘a well of water’ - it is called ‘ ‘a well’ as its source is Above, which is, and also ‘water’ - as the Torah is likened to water.

They said: 'Ascend O well’, because they were not alluding to a well below, but to the well Above, their words ענו לה :’call out to it’, as we read (Beshalach 15:21), ‘And Miriam called out to them: Sing to the Lord..’.

‘Well that the princes dug’: alluding to the teaching of our Sages, that through toiling in the Torah, they perfect the source Above, which is called ‘well’ - the extent of the correction corresponding to the merits of the toiler.

The righteous early tzaddikim, who excavated the well, and made its waters drinkable - the Avot - removed the stone which blocked the well, and, thanks to them, the Torah was able to be given to Israel, though not at the level that they could comprehend it, and drink from it.

Until the princes of the people - meaning Moshe - ‘excavated it’ , down to our level, and from them, the elders and the prophets and the members of the Great Knesset, expounded it , and revealed its secrets - as we read here: ’the nobles of the people excavated’, as the written Torah, without the Oral Torah, no person can drink from its waters.

‘Through a lawgiver’: that which they continued to deduce new insights - in the nature of inscribing in it - not like the earlier ones, who excavated and dug, as every new insights has to be expounded by their expositions - and any thing that does not stand this test, we are not to rely upon.

A gift from the wilderness :’meaning:that which they added to what the early toilers merited to uncover, was only because they considered themselves ‘as a desert’, meaning: as nothing , as the Torah can only be acquired through humility and subservience.

The Netivot Shalom also proffers an answer to our query: Why they only said this Shira - which alludes to the Torah - forty years after it was given, and not immediately it was given, saying: This is expounded in the passage (Nitzavim 29:3-4) ‘Until this day, the Lord has not given you a heart to know, eyes to see and ears to hear. I led you through the desert for forty years..’- meaning that in all these forty years, Bnei Israel did not acquire the Torah, as our Sages say: A person does not comprehend that which is in the mind of his Rabbi, till forty years.

‘Therefore, Bnei Israel could not say Shira on the Torah, as only after forty years, did Hashem give them a heart to understand, and eyes to see and ears to hear, what was the holy Torah, when they first felt its pleasantry and its sweetness.

Only then, were they able to sing the Shira of which the Torah is worthy, as the Shira is an expression of the sublimeness and value of the matter - therefore, during the whole of the preceding forty years, they did not have the ‘temerity’ to say Shira on the Torah, as only one who can truly merit to express its sublimeness in song - to do justice to its matchless breadth and length, can do so.

Only at the end of the forty years, when Hashem performed the miracle of the well, for them, as they then had the opportunity to say the Shira on the Torah, their Shira being literally about the well, but its inner allusion being to the Torah.

Rav Gedalia Schorr adds: Our Sages (Shir Hashirim Rabba ) note that , באר: well, is written forty-eight times in the Torah, corresponding to the forty-eight merits by which Torah is acquired - each such mention is a force of influence of the Torah; we also note that there are forty-eight prophets in the history of Israel, who inspired wisdom in the people.

Our Shira arose from the joy of the people, that after forty years they merited to be bnei-Torah, and this aroused then to say the Shira, inviting ‘arise well’, in their yearning that its waters would inspire in them the waters of life of the Torah, like a spring which gives of its waters without ever ceasing.

‘The well that the princes dug’: Targum Yonatan writes, that ‘the princes’ are the holy Avot - Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov - all of whom engaged in digging wells, as is described at length in Parashat Toldot and in Parashat Vayetze, each one of the Avot being engaged according to their attribute.

The Chidushei Ha’rim expounds that ‘the princes’ are those who are in control of their yetser, they being the Avot, our Sages relating that the yetser ha’ra had no power over them.

They therefore had the power to remove the stone which blocked the well, the stone being an allision to the yetser ha’ra.

After them - and their work - came Moshe and Aaron, who ‘excavated’ and further opened the well of Torah, - expounding and teaching it to Bnei Israel, their entire hearts and desire being to teach and expound the Torah, and to uncover its secrets.

Moshe and Aaron - המחוקק: literally the ‘lawgiver’, but also refers to inscribing: חקיקה, .

In writing - which is ink on paper, the two are separate, whereas in חקיקה, inscribing makes the two as one - and this was what Moshe and Aaron strove and taught Bnei Israel, until the words of Torah were inscribed in their souls.

And.from the wilderness - the gift’: Our Sages say ( Ned’ 55. ) : Because one makes himself like a desert, open to all, it ‘ the Torah, ‘is given to him, as a gift’- ‘open to all’: meaning: teaching his Torah to all.

It can also allude to him abandoning his desires - ‘making them ownerless’ - and subjugating them to the Torah, having no other desires, and all his striving being only in Torah - then, the Torah is his as by way of a gift.

The Abarbanel suggests another reason, for the Shira only being offered now - and not earlier - It appears to me, that on the earlier occasions that Hashem gave water to Bnei Israel in a miraculous manner, it was after they demanded and complained, so that - out of necessity - He sent them water, to drink.

However, this place - בארה : ‘to the well’, was so called, because there Hashem, of Himself - without Bnei Israel asking Him for water, said to Moshe:’(21:16) ’Gather the people, and I will give them water’: without hearing them asking and entreating.

However, this place - בארה : ‘to the well’, was so called, because there Hashem, of Himself - without Bnei Israel asking Him for water, said to Moshe:’(21:16) ’Gather the people, and I will give them water’: without hearing them asking and entreating.

Our sages expound ( Taanit 9. ) that this was the ‘well of Miriam’ which had ceased giving water, on her death, and which Hashem now gave to Bnei Israel in the zechut of Moshe.

Bnei Israel, on seeing that Hashem gave before them water in joy and willingly - not because of their complaints - burst into Shira and thanks to Hashem .

This is why it says: ’This is the well that Hashem said’: meaning: that Hashem gave of Himself, and not in response to it being demanded, as were the other wells

They all then sang, saying: ’Ascend O well, sing to it’, all singing:b’Ascend..’, that its waters should be plentiful, and flowing to satisfy all their needs.

The Kli Yakar also offers his exposition, as to why Bnei Israel did not offer this Shira earlier, and as to why - unlike Shirat Hayam - it does not say: ’Then sang Moshe and Bnei Israel’.

Expounds the Sage: From this, we understand that they said this Shira regarding Moshe, as the well resumed giving water in his merit - after it had stopped doing so when Miriam died - which is why Miriam is not mentioned in this Shira, yet Moshe is alluded to:’ A well that princes dug.. through the lawgiver..’, this being a clear reference to Moshe: ‘the lawgiver’

The gemara deduces that it resumed giving water in the zechut of Moshe. Initially, the manna was given in the merit of Moshe, who received the Torah, as our Sages say: ‘the Torah was only given to those who ate the manna’, as it says ( Beshalach 16:4)’To test them, if they will go in the ways of My Torah’.

‘The well, which had satisfied all their needs, was in the merit of acts of goodnness of Miriam - who sustained the new born babies in Egypt - and the clouds of glory were in the zechut of Aaron, who caused the Shechina to rest on them, by his offerings.

In the merit of the Torah, all three returned.

 therefore says: ’The well that the princes dug carved out by the nobles of the people’: alluding to those whose attribute was good deeds, in the merit of whom the well was given to them from the outset, now returned ‘through the lawgiver’ - in the merit of Moshe,’ and in the merit of the Torah, which is alluded to in the passuk:’And from the wilderness , a gift’, as our Sages expounded (Eruvin 54.).

If not so, it is difficult: what did they see to expound these psukim on the Torah, and what relationship is there between praise of the Torah to the Shira on the well?

Rather, that the well returned to give water, in the merit of the Torah, that Moshe received.

‘This is a correct and clear exposition.’

The Alshich Hakadosh, expounds that the well alludes to the Torah:’’It says:’a well they dug’, as it was unlike the wells which are, by definition, natural phenomena - but this well was dug ‘ by princes’, the holy Avot as our Sages expound: 'the seven wells that were dug’, are the seven books of the Chumash, as Parshat Beha’alotcha in Sefer Bamidbar can be deemed as three chumashim’

If for the Avot it was simple to understand and to ‘drink from its waters’, they only having to dig as in soft earth, so great was their merit, we need to excavate as if drilling a well in rock.

This is alluded to In the words :’The nobles of the people excavated it’, the begining at Refidim, the gathering of the elders, who are ‘the nobles of the people, aided by המחוקק: ‘the lawgiver’ who struck the rock.’

The Malbim comments: Bnei Israel were in the wilderness, near the boundary of Moab, and therefore the well stopped providing water, and they therefore did not have water, and Hashem did not want to give them water by the hand of Moshe, because of the events at Mei Meriba.

Despite this, they attained a well of water - though not by the hand of Moshe - but the well regarding which Hashem said to Moshe: ‘Assemble the people and I shall give them water' - Hashem Himself gave them water without they having asked for it, and not by the hand of Moshe, but to the people themselves.

‘Then Israel sang this song’: This aroused them and they said Shira, but Moshe did not say it with them, as the waters did not come by his hand.

‘Ascend O Well, Call out to it’: They thought that the source of the water was deep down, and began to dig the well, saying to the waters they thought was in the depths: ’Ascend O Well’, hoping that they would not have to dig too deep.

However, as soon as they began to dig, the waters began to flow, so there was no need for a person to excavate, nor for nobles to supervise the work - only to began the digging, as, as soon as they waters near the surface began to appear, they were able with the staffs in their hands, to remove the upper layer of earth, and the waters emerged.

‘They then related in their Shira what they had received from the legacy of Moab.’

A parting gem from Rav Avigdor Nebenzahl:’Our Sages (Ned’ 58. ) expound that the well - in our passage - alludes to the Torah, and asks rhetorically: How can one merit to be like this well, and for Torah to flow from him? And answers ’if he - like the passuk says:’And from the desert - a gift’, that he makes himself like the desert - ownerless - then the Torah will be given to him, ‘as a gift’,

It is clear, therefore, that not for nought did our Sages juxtapose this drasha, to:‘This is the Statute of the Torah’, of the red heifer - which has no logical basis.

This, too, is the case in regards to learning Torah, which also, seemingly has no logical basis: True, to create a deep well, there is a need to dig deep.

Success in this, say our Sages, requires a person as it were, ‘to kill himself’, to make himself a vessel that can collect all of the wisdom that preceded him- this well of Torah is, therefore, dug as of itself, and is acquired by deep attention, collecting the ‘old’ wisdom- yet it is this that leads to him acquiring the ability to innovate new insights, that he has not heard from his rabbis.

‘This is truly ‘a gift’ - as our parsha promises - to become like a well of flowing water - of Torah.’

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