Preparation for Shavuot

Preparation for Shavuos

We will discuss an educational issue that is perhaps the central point in how we are supposed to relate to Torah.

Hearing more depth than initially meets the ear

Stealing money is included in stealing people

In Parshas Mishpotim, a person who steals and has no money to pay back the theft must be sold as an eved. Rashi comments that this person heard lo signov on Har Sinai, and then he did a geneivah of somebody’s money.

There is a problem with this Rashi. The lo signov of Har Sinai is talking about stealing people, whereas the person who gets sold into slavery stole money?

We see from here that the ear that heard on Har Sinai the issur of stealing people was really supposed also to hear the issur against stealing money. But it doesn’t make sense how the ear could have heard something that was not said!

Similarly, at the end of Parshas Yisro, just after the aseres hadibros, the possuk says, ‘You saw that I spoke to you from heaven. It then lists three halachos:

 1) ‘lo saaleh bemaalos al mizbechi’– ‘Don’t make steps in order to go up onto the mizbeach so as not to reveal your ervah.‘ This corresponds to giluy arayos.

2) ‘Don’t use iron blades on the mizbeach.‘ This corresponds to shefichas domim because iron is for shortening life. 

3) ‘lo saasu iti’-don’t make additional keruvim‘. This corresponds to avodah zorah. When a person makes more than what Hashem commanded this constitutes avodah zorah. 

Take, for example, the idea of avoiding taking big steps when going up on the mizbeach and consider whether this is part of giluy arayos. For sure, none of us think that this is what giluy arayos is referring to! How could giluy arayos mean this?

Let’s explain: the possukim which detail the three halachos follow shortly after the giving of the aseres hadibros and are preceded by the phrase ‘You saw that I spoke to you from heaven’. If so, the Torah is saying that what we heard at Har Sinai when we were commanded against giluy arayos, shefichus domim, etc. was from heaven. It, therefore, did not mean what we humans think that these words mean. It meant something much greater than we would begin to imagine. We needed to have listened to them in a special way, to be able to hear how in truth the heavenly command against giluy arayos also meant ‘lo saaleh bemaalos al mizbechi’.

The problems with the listening process

The problem with the listening process is that listening naturally is done to reassure our pre-existing position (of how we have always understood something).

People often listen to shiurim on subjects that they already know something about. Their reaction after the shiur inevitably is to say that this was like the one they heard 10 years ago on the same subject, only that this shiur was more interesting or delivered more clearly. However, they are sure that, essentially, it was the same shiur. This is not true. People need to realize that the shiurim are often essentially different from one another.

In addition, when we read in the Torah, for example, about lo sirzach and react by saying that, of course, this is an issur, we are effectively saying that the Torah forbids what we anyway think without the Torah. If so, we are not listening properly. We hear the Torah say no more than what we want it to say. 

The hole in the ear-the problem’s with the listening

The Torah says that the eved (who got sold for having stolen) needs a hole to be made in his ear because there is a problem with his ear. This means that his problem at Har Sinai was not a thinking problem, that he didn’t think enough about what the Torah was saying. Instead, the problem was a listening problem. His ears were problematic!

Understanding the words of the Mashgiach

Let me tell you a story concerning the Mashgiach. From this, we will also see the importance of ‘listening’ when seeing events taking place. There was a shivah house for somebody’s child who was tragically niftar. The whole time during the shivah, the father of the niftar held in his hand chelek aleph of alei shor, which he was both working on and quoting from.

I was sitting with the Mashgiach when the Rebbetzin came into the room and told her husband about the shivah. She said that the father in aveilus is always learning from the Mashgiach’s sefer of Alei Shor. She suggested to him that he should go to the shivah. The Mashgiach turned his face and said, with no expression, ‘No’ he would not go. 

This is something very uncomfortable. Such behavior does not sit comfortably with us. We have a few options for how to react. We could be like a chassid of the Rebbe and say that the gedolim are in a different realm, and have emunah that they always have deep cheshbonos that we cannot fathom. Alternatively, we could say, like goyim say, the greater the person, the greater his shadow (which is not true in Torah at all). Finally, we could accept that others do things and it’s not really our business and it makes no real difference whether or not we understand what they do.

These reactions are wrong. If we see something that bothers us, then we should live with it as something that we don’t understand but that we want to understand. I personally have no way of simply accepting the story at face value with the Mashgiach since this is not what I would want to do.

When we hear things that fit with our understanding, it’s hard to listen to them in a way that there might be something deeper than what we initially hear. However, certain things that don’t fit with us but are said by a great person are easier to hear, and there might be something more going on, deeper than what first meets the ear!

To better understand the incident I experienced with the Mashgiach, it is not an issue of ‘dan lekaf zechus’ since the Mashgiach is not concerned with how I view what he did. It does not affect my relationship with him.

In the first instance such an incident is unsuitable to be digested. We need to enter into a new world-what enters the ear is not the first resonance, but that which enters the ear is what makes a big opening into an unexpected new world that we have never before entered. Only then are we truly listening to Torah.

To hear the unexpected that lo sirtsach and stealing money go together!

Let’s see an example of this from the Gaon on Mishlei, perek 1, possuk 11 and 12. He says that lo sirtzach corresponds to the middah of anger. What’s included in anger? To our surprise, the aveirah of anger (and lo sirtzach) is geneivah of money.

We all think that geneivah of money is the aveirah of chemdah of money-not murder? The Gaon is being mechadesh to us that this is not true. The aveirah of geneivah stems from lo sirtzach. He even explains how stealing is like murder. He says that the grave separates a person from his money. So, too, when a person steals, he separates the victim from his money. The only difference between the two scenarios is that the person in the grave is after death, whereas the one who was stolen from is still alive.

The Gaon heard the issur of lo sirtzach differently from us. This is what it means to listen to the Torah, which was given to us from heaven, a much higher realm than our realm. If so, the issur against killing is not so obvious after all!

This is similar to what we said at the beginning that Hashem gave the issur of making steps up to the mizbeach as this would constitute the issur of giluy arayos. We would never have imagined that this is part of such an issur. (The only difference between this and what the Gaon said about lo sirtzach is that with the steps up to the mizbeach, Hashem knew that we wouldn’t be able to derive this derivation ourselves. Hashem needed to tell us this Himself. Whereas the Gaon worked out himself that geneivah stems from lo sirtzach).

Listening to the depth of simplicity

The Mesillas Yesharim, in his preface, says that we need to think deeply about things that appear simple. He says that he didn’t write big chiddushim. He is expressing to us that we need to listen to things that are obviously simple. This is the difficulty of the process of building ourselves up from Torah. 

Many people think that the mesillas yesharim, when he refers to us constantly reviewing these simple ideas, essentially wants us to work with the mehalech of brainwashing. This is certainly not the case since throughout the preface, he writes about the need to do this learning in a way of iyun and speaks about how this learning is chochmah—we need to work very hard to understand these ‘simple ideas.’

The mesillas yesharim wants us not to neglect things that seem so simple and self-understood (we have our own presumptions about them). Instead, he wants us to delve into them and uncover new worlds, which was intended when we were given these things from heaven.

The mesillas yesharim says that the chachomim and the simple people don’t know what real chassidus is, and they therefore do outlandish things such as tovelling themselves in the ice and fasting.

Why are even the chachomim unable to comprehend what chassidus is? Chassidus is something that needs to come from a person’s initiative. It’s not what you hear or see in the words. Since even the chachomim are not accustomed to thinking into the real deeper understanding behind apparently simple topics in Torah, they, therefore, think that the only way to achieve chassidus is by doing things that are totally different and outlandish actions from what they are used to.

The truth is that chassidus lies in the simple matters, only that it requires opening up new worlds within the place of simplicity. For example, people think that a person with chassidus in gemillus chassodim makes Shabbos and Yom Tov meals for a hundred people and then hosts another meal for another hundred a few hours later. This is not the case. This is someone who thinks that chassidus requires leaving simple places and ideas and escaping to a different realm that bears no resemblance to the world of simplicity.

True chassidus of chessed can be displayed just by giving one guest a smile he cannot get anywhere else. People think that this is so simple and that everyone does this and therefore cannot possibly construe how this could be chassidus. However, chassidus is taking the initiative and going beyond the simple words and opening up a new world within the simple words and concepts. It’s not sophisticated but it’s deep. 

Everything we have said about the mesillas yesharim is all centered around listening. He says that the analytical mind is not willing to think about anything other than what is obviously challenging and sophisticated, and that has chiddushim. Therefore, the only way to get the mind to think about simple matters in a deep way is by first hearing that there is hidden depth.

An example of listening properly (in other words, of thinking deeply about simple things) is my son, who came to me and said that he understands the expression that the grass is always greener on the other side. People always think that the neighbor’s grass is greener than their own.

He explained that you see just the finished product when looking at your neighbor’s grass. However, with your own grass, you first saw it when it started as just a patch of soil without any grass. Therefore, when you look at the finished product, you see it together with how it began as a patch of soil. It doesn’t look as nice as the pure grass of your neighbor’s.

Listening properly is not correlated with a person’s IQ. Rather, it is connected only with the ability to hear what is really being said.

Shavuos pushes us to take seriously the need to listen properly to the Torah, which was said from heaven, and not simplify it in a way that fits our minds.

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Written by Rabbi Rapport