Dear Friends:
Now we come to an incredibly painful moment in our history, made infinitely more so because we have fallen into exactly the same trap today, some 4500 years later!
When will we learn? When will we get the message!
“We arrived at the Land… Indeed it flows with milk and honey…. BUT….” (Numbers 13:27-8)
Wait a minute! What’s the “BUT” all about?
“BUT … the people that dwells in the Land is powerful, the cities are fortified and very great, and we also saw there the offspring of the giant…. We cannot ascend to that people, for it is too strong for us…. We were like grasshoppers in our eyes, and so we were in their eyes!”
Hold on! This is Am Yisroel speaking! We have just left Egypt. Pillars of cloud and fire surround us! Moses and Aaron lead us! This is the Nation to whom King David says, “Hashem is with me; I have no fear; how can man affect me…. All the nations surround me; in the Name of Hashem I cut them down! They encircle me …. in the Name of Hashem I cut them down!” (Psalm 118)
Once again, I would like to repeat the words I heard with my own ears almost exactly one year ago from the Gaon, Rabbi Moshe Shternbuch Shlita”h in Yerushalayim Ir ha Kodesh: “We have nothing whatsoever to fear from the president of Iran. Nothing in the news has any effect on us whatsoever. The only thing that affects the fate of the Jewish People is our relationship with G-d.” (A paraphrase)
One should really contemplate these words continuously.
G-d says: “How long will this people provoke Me; and how long will they not have faith in Me, despite all the signs that I have performed in their midst?” (14:11)
My friends, we have survived thousands of years of Exile, despite “impossible” odds. Simple recognition of the truth should teach us that Hashem is sustaining us and that no nation or individual has the slightest ability to harm us, unless – G-d forbid! – we spurn G-d’s protection!
But we are blind! Or maybe we blind ourselves.
“We were like grasshoppers in our eyes, and so we were in their eyes!”
We are now entering the summer season, the season of danger to the eyes. The solution is not sunblock or dark glasses. During this season, the surrounding culture sheds even more of its restraints, indulging itself in behavior that lacks all pretense of modesty. Danger surrounds us on every side. Gone are the days in which bnai Torah would run to the mikveh after having inadvertently seen an inappropriate sight.
Parshas Shelach ends in a surprising way. “Speak to the Children of Israel and say to them that they shall make themselves tzitzis on the corners of their garments.…” (15:37ff). What is the Mitzvah of Tzitzis doing here? It seems totally unrelated to the surrounding subject matter.
My friends, the Mitzvah of Tzitzis is the answer to the problem! G-d, in His infinite mercy, is telling us exactly what to do with our eyes!
“It shall constitute tzitzis for you, that you may see it and remember all the commandments of Hashem and perform them; and not explore after your heart and after your eyes after which you stray!” (15:39)
Why are we obsessed with the nations of the world? Why are we transfixed, like a deer paralyzed by oncoming headlights? If we don’t stop staring at our enemies we will – G-d forbid! – be struck by the endless freight train that is bearing down upon us! Who are they and what are they? “Hashem is with me; I have no fear; how can man affect me…. All the nations surround me; in the Name of Hashem I cut them down!”
Look at the tzitzis, the symbol of the 613 Commandments, “so that you may remember and perform all the commandments and be holy to your G-d.”
What do we think protects us? Our appeals to the nations? Our appeals to “reason” and “logic”? Our political “clout,” our demonstrations and letters to the editor? “Havail havalim … futility of futilities!” (Koheles 1:2) The One Source of our sustenance is the 613 Commandments represented by the Tzitzis!
It is this simple: If our eyes are on the tzitzis, we will live!
Every day we say, “Boruch Ata Hashem, Elokainu Melech ha Olam, Pokayach Ivrim… Blessed are You, Al-Mighty G-d, Who gives sight to the blind!” How could our Rabbis have instituted such a blessing? I am not blind!
I remember years ago hearing Rabbi Mattisyahu Salomon Shlita”h speaking on this topic. It was a calamitous moment; Lakewood was plunged in despair. If we believe that we have the intrinsic ability to see, then we are fooling ourselves completely! We see nothing! We are totally blind, stumbling without vision in a black world! The only light emanates from the Holy Torah, and the path to that light is reflected in the tzitzis, because the tzitzis reflect the mitzvos.
May we soon see the light emanating from the Holy Temple and the day when the world is renewed in its primeval purity!
“May it be Your will, Hashem, my G-d and the G-d of my forefathers, to fill the flaw of the moon… May the light of the moon be like the light of the sun and like the light of the seven days of creation, as it was before it was diminished… and may there be fulfilled upon us the verse that is written, ‘They shall seek Hashem, their G-d and David , their king, Amen!’” (Kiddush Levana)
© Copyright 2010 by Roy S. Neuberger
