The Jews have just spent the last 40 years in the desert. The majority of the people where under 20 years old when they left Mitzriam and have spent the large majority of their lives in the midbar. Now Moshe is telling them about what they should do when they enter Eretz Yisrael. The first thing he tells them to do when they get there is destroy all traces of Avodah Zara that exists in the country even the names of the Avodah Zara should be destroyed (12:3). The reason is because if they do not they will be effected by their neighbors and it will lead them to do Avodah Zara (12:30). This seems pretty far fetched, the nation who has spent the last 40 years surrounded by Hashem is going to be so effected by their neighbors that even if just the name of the Avodah Zara still exists they will still sin. As the people are hearing this they are probably thinking that there is no way this is going to happen, even if they leave a small group of survives nothing will go wrong. So what does Hashem do? He says not only will this happen but I will show you the step by step process that leads you to worshiping them. First, you leave some remnant of the Avodah Zara and you do not think that is a problem. Then as time goes on prophets begin to come saying that Hashem sent them, then later these false prophets will not even say they are from Hashem they will say they had a prophecy from an angel. Then, others will be lead off the derech by these prophets which will lead to them trying to get you to sin. Then tons and tons of people are worshiping this idol to the point where they are now in the majority. This is exactly how Hashem lays out the Halachot in this week's parsha. First the command to destroy the idols then to stop false prophets. After that to stop others from leading others to sin and finally to the halacha of Ir Hanidachat (The Wayward City). All of this is in perek 13. Then Hashem gives us advice, do you want to know how to keep away from doing all of these things? It is very simple, 1) do not cut yourself 2) do not cut your payot 3) do not eat non kosher food. These three things will remind you that you are different than the nations that surround you. Imagine you work in a big company. The company is going to eat out at some fancy restaurant and all the big wigs will be there. You get there and everyone is eating delicious looking non kosher food. These are your friends, the people you spend most of your day with but you feel removed from them because you cannot eat with them. This is how we remain separate from the other nations. Hashem has warned us in this week's parsha, if we get to close we will get burned, we must keep our distance. Of course to live in this world we must live among non Jews but we must always remember that however close we get we are different then them, we are Hashem's nation.
Many times when people see a list of Halachot, much like this week's parsha they begin to remove the Godly aspect from the mitzvot. They just become things that must get done. We wake up in the morning and daven, not because we love Hashem and want to shout it on the rooftops rather because it is our obligation to daven. If we stop considering mitzvot as obligations and start realizing that Hashem did not just give us 613 mitzvot because He wanted to make your lives miserable, rather He knows what is best for us and we must do everything necessary to stay away from everything else in the world. If we can see halachot as a way to help us live happy lives then we will live happy lives, if we chase after pleasure of this world we will not get anywhere. This is the message that Moshe is telling us before he dies, if you truly want to live a spiritual life you must completely remove everything else from your life. If you leave anything of it, even just its name, eventually you will return to those things you were trying to get away from. That is what this week's parsha is trying to teach us.
Correction: Last night I wrote that the 3 things that Hashem wants us to do to keep us from sinning is 1) not to cut ourselves 2) not to cut our payot 3) to not eat non kosher food. This is a mistake. #2 is not cutting your payot it is ripping out your hair. This was done when a person died, in sadness a mourner would rip out some of his hair. This teaches us another important lesson. The reason why non Jews would rip out their hair is because they believe that after death a person just lays in the ground. They do not believe in an afterlife, therefore death is a bad thing. But we believe that there is life after death. Therefore death is actually a good thing. Hashem telling us not to rip out our hair is teaching us that we must remember that after this life there is another one. In that life we will have the ultimate pleasure, but we can only get there if we follow the mitzvot. So by remembering the fact that we will one day be rewarded it will stop us from sinning. That is why Hashem commands us not to pull out our hair.
ReplyDeleteThis leads to an interesting question that Rav Brevda quotes in a chazal. If we believe that death is good then why would we punish a murderer? If anything we should throw him a party for helping this man. So Rav Brevda explains that the purpose of Hashem creating this world was so that He could come down and dwell with us. The only way that can happen is when we are holy enough to allow Him to come down. The way to do that is to perfect ourselves, to remove all sin and do mitzvot. Therefore, by killing someone he is taking away the persons chance to perfect himself and allow Hashem to come down to this world. By killing someone this person is moving the world farther away from perfection. This is why he is punished.