are in ruins because then they are a pledge [mashkon]

for you, and the fact that they are in ruins is an atonement for your souls, as

it is said, The Lord has brought His fury to an end (Eikha 4:11).

And by what means has He brought it to and end? He has kindled a fire in

Zion.

(Rashi on Bamidbar 24:5, Silbermann translation)

Walk Modestly

Aviad Stollman

The haftara

of parashat Balak ends with the prophet's famous

words, He has told you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord

with your God (Micah 6:8).

The Sages held that these words summarize the hundreds of demands originally

made of the Jewish People, incorporating them all in a mere three commandments:

Moses was told six hundred and

thirteen commandments…Micah arrived and founded them upon three;…do justice – that is law. Love kindness – that

is works of kindness. Walk modestly with your God

– that is caring for the dead and helping prepare a bride's wedding.

(Makkot 23b-24a)

The Sages' explanations of the

first two demands mentioned by Micah seem almost trivial. In contrast, their

explanation of the third demand, walk modestly with your God, strays

from the plain meaning of the text. Despite the explicit words with your God,

the Sages interpret the third demand as being – like the first two – concerned

with the realm of inter-human relations. In the following paragraphs, we shall

attempt to offer a literal exposition of that phrase and demonstrate its

connection with the first two demands.

Surprisingly, the root tzadi-nun-ayin (which occurs in the word hatznei'a – modestly) appears only twice in

all of Scripture. Besides in the verse mentioned above, it also is to be found

in Mishlei 11:2: When arrogance appears, disgrace

follows, but wisdom is with those who are unassuming [tzenu'im].

The parallel structure of the verse teaches us that modesty [tzni'ut] is the opposite of arrogance; while

arrogance brings disgrace, modesty brings wisdom. And what, then, is arrogance?

Two verses suggest that its primary meaning is haughtiness, or even pride in

evil:

Your arrogant heart has seduced

your heart, "Who can pull me down?" (Ovadiah 1:3; compare Jeremiah 49:16)

I will put an end to the pride

of the arrogant and humble the haughtiness of tyrants. (Isaiah 13:11)

Modesty, then, is humility and

low-spiritedness. That would seem to be the way to interpret a parallel passage

in the Book of Sirah (16:25):

I will

impart my spirit in a measured fashion, and declare my knowledge with modesty.

One will still wonder, why does humility constitute such an important principle? Various

explanations of humility's importance have been forwarded. Of the greatest of

prophets, our Rabbi Moses, it was said: and the man Moses was most humble – more

than any other man on the face of the earth (Bamidbar 12:3). The emphatic mentioning of

that fact suggests that there is something fundamental about humility and

modesty which is a prerequisite for significant human spiritual achievements. Rashi's commentary on the passage from Micah, which cites the

targum attributed to Yonatan on the verse, also seems to point in that

direction: "Be modest in order to walk in fear of your God." Modesty,

as we shall see, is not merely a desirable character trait; it is also the

foundation for religious sensibility and action.

Just after discussing God's

existence in his magnum opus, the Mishneh

Torah, the RaMBaM devotes the second chapter of Hilkhot

Yesidei HaTorah to the

commandment to love God: "This God, honored and revered, it is our duty to

love and fear; as it is said, You shall love the Lord your God (Devarim 6:5), and it is further said, You

shall fear the Lord your God (6:13)." He then immediately sets out to answer the obvious

question, "And what is the way that will lead to the love of Him and the

fear of Him?":

And when he ponders these

matters, he will recoil frightened, and realize that he is a small creature,

lowly and obscure, endowed with slight and slender intelligence, standing in

the presence of Him who is perfect in knowledge. And so David said: When I

is man that You are mindful of him? (Tehillim 8:4-5) (Hilkhot

Yesodei HaTorah 2:2, this

and previous passages from the Hymanson translation)

According to what the RaMBaM

writes here, modesty and humility are not merely virtues which allow one to

realize spiritual achievements. They are not merely behavioral excellences of

the sort that the RaMBaM discusses at great length elsewhere, such as in his Shemonah Perkakim. Here

is talking about a much more substantial matter: feelings of nothingness, of

modesty, of recoiling are the immediate causes of the fear of God.

In his famous essay, U'Bikashtem MiSham,

Rabbi J. B. Soloveitchik considers the dialectic

formed by the two great forces – love and fear. Love draws man close, while

fear distances him, yet the process never ceases. Rav

Soloveitchik says that these two forces form the

foundation for religious-halkhic consciousness. In

the practical realm, "this spiritual conflict materializes in the

principle of imitation dei" (pg.180). Man's desire to come near to

God, which is driven by love, is blocked by fear. Yet the human says: "Even

though I cannot cling to Him, still I can imitate Him. The act of imitation

involves something of an admission of failure of his arrogant attempt to

achieve full connectedness [with God]" (ibid). The Rav

developed this principle at depth in his writings, even finding in it a basis

for understanding the creative role of both natural scientists and halakhic

scholars. The RaMBaM counts it as a positive

commandment, upon which he expounds at length in Hilkhot

De'ot 1:6:

We are bidden to walk in the

middle paths which are the right and proper ways, as it is said, and you

shall walk in His ways (Devarim 28:9).

In explanation of the text just

quoted, the Sages taught, "Even as God is called gracious, so be you

gracious, even as He is called merciful, so be you merciful; even as He is called

holy, so be you holy." Thus too the prophets described the Almighty by all

the various attributes long-suffering and abounding in kindness, righteous

and upright, perfect, mighty, and powerful, and so forth, to teach us that

these qualities are good and right and that a human being should cultivate

them, and thus imitate God, as far as he can. (Hymanson

translation)

We may conclude: The simple

observation of our sensible world draws man to love God and to seek His

nearness. However, deep and careful contemplation brings about fear, which

blocks man from drawing near to God. Man's possibility of drawing near to God

despite fear depends upon his ability to imitate the ways of the inconceivable

Deity. This imitation finds expression in the imitation of God's ethical

qualities. This does not only involve imitation of the ethical virtues, it also

involves drawing oneself near to the wise, as the RaMBaM states:

It is a positive commandment to

cling to the wise in order to learn from their deeds, for it is said, and

cling to Him (Devarim 10:20). But can a man cling to the Divine Presence? Rather, the

Sages said when interpreting this commandment, "Cling to the Sages and to

their students." (Hilkhot De'ot

6:2)

The wise man of Hilkhot De'ot is the person who

imitates God's actions by traveling the middle path, all of his psychological

qualities working in a measured and carefully thoughtful manner (see Hilkhot De'ot 1:4-6).

The demand for modesty, fear,

and humility found in the verse, Go modestly

with your God constitutes, then, the basis for the imitation of God

expressed by do justice, and to love kindness. Without modesty and

humility there is no fear of God, and, as a result, no attempt to imitate Him. Without

modesty and humility there is no desire to cling to the wise. Now it may be

understood why Micah grouped kindness and justice together with Go modestly with your God. It is appropriate

for us as well, especially in these stormy days of harsh controversy, to

conduct ourselves with modesty and humility, as is the practice of Torah

scholars:

A scholar should not shout and

scream when speaking, as do the animals and beasts; he should not overly raise

his voice; rather, he should speak calmly with all people….he should judge

all people charitably, speak the praises of his fellow while not disparaging

him at all; he should love peace and pursue peace. (Hilkhot De'ot 5:7)

Rabbi Aviad

Stollman is a doctoral candidate in the Talmud

Department of Bar Ilan University http://atranet.co.il/aviadstollman

Who

is Bil'am in the Tradition of the Generations?

There arose no further prophet

in Israel like Moses – in Israel there arose not, but among

the nations there arose one. And who was that? Bil'am ben

Be'or. But there is a difference between the

prophecy of Moses and that of Bil'am ben Be'or; Moses knew not who was

speaking to him, and Bil'am knew who was talking to

him, as is written, Utters the hearer of Godly sayings; Moses knew not

when He spoke with him, whereas Bil'am knew when He

spoke with him, as is written, who knows the knowledge of the Most-High; Moses

spoke with Him only when standing, as is written, Now you stand here with

Me, whereas Bil'am spoke with Him while

prostrate, as is written, envisioning a vision of Shaddai,

bowed, but with eyes uncovered. To what may this be compared? To the cook

of a king who knows how much the king spends on his table.

(Yalkut Shimoni, Devarim Chap. 35,

961)

Said

Rabbi Elazar Hakapar: Bil'am looked out and saw that there will be a man, born of

woman, who will some day arise and attempt to set himself up as a divinity, and

to lead the entire world astray. Therefore was power given to the voice of Bil'am so that he would be heard by all the nations of the

world, and so he said: "Be careful not to go astray after that man

(Jesus), as is written, No man is God, that he should lie, and if he

claims to be a God, he is lying and he is destined to mislead and say that he

is disappearing but will come in time (i.e., that he is the messiah of the end

of days) Should he say and not do so?

(From

an uncensored version of a midrash

– quoted by

Y.

Leibowitz in Sheva

Shanim shel Sihot al Parashiyot Ha'Shavu'a)

The bestowal of the gift of prophecy on all human

creatures was designed to impress upon the world that the choice of Israel was

no arbitrary one, but the reward for Israel's readiness and willingness to

accept the Torah. R. Yohanan's famous words (Avodah Zarah 2b) to the effect that God offered the Torah first to all the nations, one

by one, but all refused, only Israel accepting, is explained in the Gemara as the rejoinder to the arguments of the nations:

Did you ever offer us the Torah that we refused it? In this way, later sources

motivate the gift of prophecy to the Gentiles.

(E.E. Aurbach, as

quoted by Nehama Leibowitz in her

Studies in Bamidbar, pg. 325, Aryeh

Newman translator)

An important lesson can be learnt from this. Man's

natural qualities do not determine his spiritual status, nor do the talents

bestowed on him from Above. Even the supreme gift of prophecy cannot turn him

into a saint against his will or without his own endeavors. Man's own will is

the sole factor determining whether he will use his qualities, talents and even

the gift of prophecy bestowed on him for good, or, God forbid, misuse them for

evil. It depends solely upon his own freewill to aspire to the sainthood of a

Moses or descend to the villainy of a Balaam.

(Nehama Leibowitz Studies

in Bamidbar, pg. 326, Aryeh Newman translator)

A star rises from Yaakov –Prophecy, Identification and Confirmation

A star rises from Yaakov – Because the Messiah will gather the dispersed of Israel from the ends

of the earth, he compared him to a star rising in the firmament from the ends

of the earth.

(RaMBaN on Bamidbar 24:17)

Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai taught: Rabbi Akiva would

expound A star has risen from Yaakov – Kozba [Bar Kokhba] has risen from

Yaakov. When Rabbi Akiva

would see bar Kozba, he would say: This is the

anointed King – the Messiah. Rabbi Yochanan ben Tortah said to him: Akiva, grass will sprout from your cheeks and still the

Messiah will not arrive.

(Yerushalmi Taanit

4:5)

Don't imagine that the Anointed King [Mashiah] must perform signs and miracles and create

new things in the world or resurrect the dead, etc. Such is not the case, for we see that Rabbi Akiva

Messiah.

When he was killed because of his sins they realized he was not. The sages did

not ask him to show a sign or a miracle. The main principle is as follows: This

Torah, its precepts and rulings are eternal, not to be added to nor detracted

from.

(Rambam, Mishneh

Torah, Hilkhot Melakhim

11:3)

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