B"H
THOUGHTS FOR THE MONTH OF TAMMUZ
The summer begins. The beautiful holiday stretching
from Pesach through Sefiras ha Omer to Shavuos has
ended. What the rest of the world considers the Vacation
Season, the Children of Israel consider the Season of Challenge. We
now approach the period of our great tragedy, the sin of the miraglim and
the ensuing catastrophes through the centuries, down to our
own time which have taken place on Tisha b'Av.
Last Shabbos we read Parshas Shelach, which
describes this chilling episode. One is tempted to ask
how the sin of the miraglim could have occurred in
the presence of Moshe Rabbeinu and Aharon ha Kohain,
directly following our miraculous escape from Egyptian bondage
and the countless miracles of the desert march.
Leah and I just returned from a speaking tour in San Diego. Before
Yom Tov, we had one day of leisure and decided to drive several
hours eastward to a huge nature preserve encompassing the desert
wilderness near the U. S.- Mexican border. It was not
yet summer, of course, and the heat was therefore still relatively
moderate. Yet, within about ten minutes of setting out
on the desert trail, we felt so weak that we had to turn back.
Then we began to think about the history of our Nation.
HOW DID OVER ONE MILLION CHILDREN OF ISRAEL SURVIVE IN THE
SINAI DESERT FOR FORTY YEARS! HOW DID WE DO IT! Ten
minutes in California was too much for us, yet our nation survived
forty years in the Sinai! No one starved or died of thirst;
no one's clothes lost their freshness, and we all learned Torah! Only
those died whose sins made them vulnerable.
How do you explain this?
Well, how do you explain our survival in general for the last
two thousand years in a world filled with vicious enemies?
We will return to this question.
There is, to my mind, a very strange ending to Parshas
Shelach. Seemingly unconnected to what precedes
it, comes the passage concerning the mitzvah of "tzitzis." Why
does this very prominent commandment appear isolated, so
to speak, at the end of Parshas Shelach?
There is an amazing answer to this question.
The world is accusing the Children of Israel of torturing
the Arabs and stealing their land. The government of
Israel seems totally unable to deal with these enemies who
daily rain down destruction on our beleaguered people and are
constantly pursuing new ways of trying to inflict suffering
on us, G-d forbid. We seem so helpless!
Let us return to the miraglim: how could ten princes
of Israel have returned with such a defeatist report in the
presence of Moshe Rabbeinu and Aharon ha Kohain,
directly following our miraculous escape from Egyptian bondage
and the countless miracles of the desert march? How?
My friends, the answer is right in front of us. Let
us open our eyes. We are the same people today! The
same defeatists! Listen to the words of the miraglim: "The
land through which we passed ... is a land that devours its
inhabitants. All the people that we saw in it were huge! There
we saw the ... sons of the giant from among the Nephilim; we
were like grasshoppers in our eyes and so we were in their
eyes!" [1]
All those who do not have faith in the Master of the Universe
are like grasshoppers in their own eyes! To them, "our
enemies are huge."
How can that be? Is anyone "huge" in the eyes of G-d?
As Yehoshua and Kalev say, "You should not
fear the people of the Land, for they are our bread." [2]
And what is the passage of "tzitzis" doing at the
end of the Parsha?
The passage of Tzitzis contains the answer
to the sin of the miraglim, the tikkun,
the recipe for healing.
Are we supposed to fear these "giants" in whose presence
we feel like grasshoppers? Are we supposed to fear the
contemporary "giants" who have established themselves in Gaza
and Lebanon and the other countries surrounding Israel, and
indeed in every country throughout the entire world? Are
we supposed to look at them in fear?
What are we supposed to look at, my friends?
THE TZITZIS!
"It
shall constitute tzitzis for you, that you may see
it and remember all the commandments of G-d , and NOT EXPLORE
AFTER YOUR HEART AND AFTER YOUR EYES, AFTER WHICH YOU STRAY."
That is our answer! The tzitzis represent the
613 commandments of the Torah, which save us from every danger
and guarantee our lives as we walk through the Desert of Exile. It
is the Torah at which we are supposed to look, not at the enemies
who appear to threaten us. If we want to live in this
world and the Next World; if we want our Father in Heaven to
protect us from our enemies, then we must look at the tzitzis and
the Torah which they represent. That is our one and only
guarantee of life and length of days! When we look, G-d
forbid, at our enemies, we become "like grasshoppers." When
we look at the Torah and fulfill its commandments we become
the most powerful nation on earth, walking in nobility with
G-d like our ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Moshe
Rabbeinu, Dovid ha Melech and the giants of Torah throughout
the ages.
May we soon see the day when the three weeks and Tisha b'Av
become a time of simcha and we rejoice in the presence
of Moshiach ben Dovid and the Holy Temple in a rebuilt
Jerusalem, may we see it soon in our days!
Roy S. Neuberger
[1] Numbers 13:32
[2] Numbers 14:9
