mishpetei hashem emess
We are judged for thoughts, speech and actions of every moment, because Hashem does not forget anything. The A-mighty’s judgments are just. Sometimes we receive rewards or punishments within a short period, and sometimes after a long time. Sometimes we do not comprehend Hashem’s conduct at all, so that we may have free choice to believe in Him and His just ways, despite the lack of our understanding.
Here in Eretz Yisroel they are persecuting lomdei Torah. Their entire goal is for us to slacken our devotion to Hashem and His Torah. However, without Torah, there are no Jews, and without Jews there is no world, and without the world there is nothing. We are required to display mesirus nefesh for the honor of Heaven. And if Hashem expects this from us, that means that we are capable of such self-dedication.
Lack of gratitude
“O foolish people [“novol”] and unwise” (32:6). Rashi says that “foolish” refers to someone lacking gratitude. As the Ramban points out, this character trait makes someone so corrupt that he is no longer considered to be a person, but only a neveilo (carcass). Therefore, such a person is necessarily also “unwise”, since it is an iron rule that the Torah only resides in the heart of someone who has amended his faulty character traits, as Rabeinu Yonah says, “First a person has to amend his character traits. That way will the Torah will dwell within him, for it never dwells in a body which does not possess good character traits”.
pupil of His eye
“He protected them as the pupil of His eye” (32:10). Rashi: This refers to the black part of the eye, from which the light is reflected outward
The greater the darkness, and the black surrounding it, the more prominent the light that illuminates it. Hence, nowadays when darkness is to be found everywhere, with the very atmosphere permeated with trials unknown to previous generations, how great must be the reward of those keeping mitzvos who illuminate their actions in the midst of the darkness, and with a small quantity of light much darkness can be eradicated.
This applies, in particular, to those who find themselves amongst people who are devoid of any spark of faith. With each mitzvah and zikuy horabim we accumulate more merits than our forefathers in bygone generations, since our actions are more conspicuous amongst the prevalent darkness, and Hashem guards our good deeds like the Pupil of His Eye.
new heresies
“Deities they did not know, new things that only recently came, which your forefathers did not fear” (32:17).
The early generations of idol worshippers believed in a Creator, but the last generations prior to the coming of Moshiach are full of philosophies containing new atheistic heresies without any religion or faith at all. Their followers worship their own desires and the evil inclination, and attribute all their successes to their own handiwork. Unfortunately, many of our coreligionists participated in these movements and philosophies, which our forefathers did not know, and they constitute a difficult test for the Jews, which has been decreed upon the last generations prior to the coming of Moshiach.
hester ponim
“And He said, "I will hide My face from them. I will see what their end will be” (32:20).
Contrary to popular belief, hester ponim does not mean that Hashem removes His Providence abandoning us to the mercies of others. G-d forbid to entertain such an idea, since Hashem promised that He will never remove His kindness from us. When He is in pain, we are in pain. However, based on our deeds and situation, the ways of Providence may change so that instead of a revealed Divine providence Hashem puts in place a concealed Providence in which His love for us is less obvious.
Rav Shmuel Bornstein of Sochotchov compares Hashem’s conduct with the Jews to a father teaching his son to walk on his own. The father hides from the son in order to get him to run after him and take steps on his own, without any assistance. He watches his son’s steps from a distance, and as soon as he senses that his son is going to fall, he immediately runs to him to support him. Similarly, Hashem says that He will hide His face from us, so that we will have to look after ourselves without Divine assistance, so to speak, but Hashem will “see what their end will be”: He watches us in order to straighten our ways and guide our actions.
“National Judaism”
“They have moved me to jealousy with a no-god; they have provoked Me to anger with their vanities; and I will move them to jealousy with a no-people” (32:21).
This possuk may be taken as an allusion to current times in which those who uproot the Torah have invented a “Judaism” without a G-d, stripped of religion, with only the symbols of a nation, a state and language, their goal being to turn the Jewish nation into a nation like any other. In doing so, they have provoked Hashem’s anger with their vanities. Hashem will be moved to jealousy for His sake in order to prove that “national Judaism” without a G-d is a recipe for a “no-people”, since the nation cannot continue to exist just by possessing national symbols without the observance of Torah and cleaving to Hashem.
Olom Habo
“I kill and I make alive” (32:39).
The Ibn Ezra writes that many people interpreted this possuk as a biblical source for the eternal soul and the afterlife. He notes that Rav Hai Gaon suggested that the Torah does not explicitly talk about Olom Habo because these matters were handed down by oral tradition. The Ibn Ezra himself suggests that since the Torah was given to the entire nation and meant to be universally understood it does not talk about such a topic, which is very profound and understood only by “one in a thousand” people. Our reward in Olom Habo depends on the state of the neshomo, the quality of which is the result of “working on our hearts”. This avodas halev is achieved by contemplating the handiwork of Hashem, which is the ladder one has to climb in order to acquire the fundamental quality of knowing Hashem.
A person’s avodas halev consists in performing mitzvos with joy and enthusiasm, thereby molding and refining his neshomo and making it an appropriate vessel for receiving the spiritual pleasure of closeness to the Creator in the afterlife. Just like the form of the face differs from person to person, so does the form of the neshomo, and the person himself shapes it. It takes on a new form on a daily basis, based on the person’s avodo. Each person, based on his level of avodas halev, and the extent to which he has contemplated the ways of Hashem, is able to cleave to the Creator, which is the preparation for the afterlife.
This difference between people’s neshomos cannot be understood easily intellectually using terminology stemming from Olom Hazeh, and therefore the whole topic of Olom Habo was not set out explicitly in the Torah, because the Torah was handed down to people with physical bodies who are meant to observe it with mitzvos pertaining to physical matters such as eating and speaking. Hence, Olom Habo is only hinted at in the Torah sheba’al pe.
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