And I will hide My face

other deities. (Devarim

31:18)

The meaning of I will hide is that if they call Me I will not

answer; it is metaphorically like someone who does not see and does not know

what to do. And the doubling of the verb (haster astir) is a linguistic

convention known to grammarians.

(Ibn Ezra ad loc)

And I will hide My face Once the

Holy Rabbi Bunim of Peshischa – may his merit protect us – asked the Holy Rabbi

from Lublin – may his merit protect us: Is it really true, as the Rabbi says,

that if a person knows his self-worth and the accounting of his soul, that it

is like the folk saying about calculating a bill of sale: "The calculation

of the bill is already half of its payment." And he replied that, yes, it

is a matter of common sense. Just as goods stored outside the country are

acceptable if they bear the king's seal, so too, if one recognizes his own

genuine worth, then the name of the King of the kings of kings, the Holy One,

blessed be He, is called upon him. God's seal is truth and this renders the man

acceptable, and understand this for it is deep. This is similar to that which is

written in the book Keter Shem Tov (vol. 1 section 25, translated by Rabbi Yehoshua

Starrett, http://www.baalshemtov.com/display3.php?type=kesser) in the

name of the Holy Baal Shem Tov, may his merit protect us, and this is how it is

stated: "When a person becomes aware of what deeply ails him, of the fact

that he is spiritually ill – that his mind is constricted in katnut/immature

consciousness – this very awareness softens his constriction, and this

awareness itself is the healing of his illness. However, if one is unaware – referred

to as hester/concealed consciousness (as the verse says, "I will

conceal Myself" (Deuteronomy 31:18) – and does not realize that he is

spiritually ill, then there is nothing that can heal his wounds)."

(Siah

Sarfei Kodesh – Lashon Hasidim al Parashat Vayelekh)

For

Life is for Love

Rami

Pinchover

The conclusion of

Moses' speeches and of the Torah – especially chapter 30 – contains two

theological ideas which constitute the central theological axes of all biblical

literature: Teshuva ["return" or "repentance"] and choice. These

are also the axes upon which the months of Elul and Tishrei turn.

Free choice and

teshuva are closely interconnected and are mutually interdependent. Teshuva

cannot exist without free choice and free choice cannot achieve its potential

without the possibility of teshuva. True freedom lays a heavy responsibility on

man's shoulders, since he must choose his way at every moment, and his choices

will determine his fate. Teshuva, however, grants him the right to occasionally

err in his choices; if he errs, it is usually possible to correct the error

through teshuva.

And thus, it is

written: Behold, I have set before you today life and good, and death and

evil, and later: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and

the curse. You shall choose life, so that you and your offspring will live,

and yet later: To love the Lord your God, to listen to His voice, and to

cleave to Him. For that is your life (Devarim 30:15-20).

The parallel use of

the words life and good signifies that the choice of the good is

a choice for life! It may be demonstrated that in Scripture life refers

to more than physical existence; it includes life's purpose and content,

as well as the way of life.

People have wondered about the meaning of

that wonderful phrase, choose life. Exegetes disagree regarding its

interpretation: is it a command, a bit of advice, a direction, or the

description of a psycho-philosophical situation? Rashi writes: "I instruct

you to choose the portion of life." Saadia Gaon says: "I advise you

to choose life." Rabbeinu Behayeiy says: "From here [we learn] that

permission is granted to man and the choice is in his hands… for if not so,

there would be no room for the Torah and reward and punishment would be made

void." Kli Yakar states: "It comes to warn him not to try to

do that which God deems good [merely] in order to live, but rather to live in

order to do that which is good." RaMBaM writes: "The Creator does not

coerce human beings or decree that they do good or evil. Rather, it is all

given over to them [to choose]" (Hilkhot

Teshuva 5:3). In a completely different vein, R. Yishmael offers a

surprising and practical interpretation: "Choose life – that is a

craft" (J. Kiddushin 1:7); learning

a craft is choosing life, for it is the key to one's physical and spiritual

existence as well as to one's personal gain and one's utility for humanity.

It is interesting that most of the

commentators do not point out to us that the Torah alludes to a much more

complex message by justifying the choice of life with life itself – You shall choose life, so that you and your offspring will

live. What is this life that promises us life? Or as the NeTzIV

MiVolozhin asks in his Ha'Amek Davar: "If he does not want life,

how can you offer him the rationale that he must choose life in order to

live?"

It would seem possible to interpret the verse

as saying You shall choose life – i.e., choose

the proper way for a person to live, so that you and your offspring will

live – that is the reward for having made the correct choice. Saadia Gaon

and Ibn Ezra, however, take note of the verses that follow: You shall choose

life, so that you… will live… To love the Lord your God, to listen

to His voice, and to cleave to Him. Both these sages claim that love – the

love of God – is life's purpose. We have already learned that love of God

consists of walking in His path, as the Sages put it: "Just as He is

merciful and compassionate, so you too should be merciful and compassionate (Sifrei Devarim 49; Shabbat

133). That is to say that the choice of life is realized via the love of

humanity which was created in God's image. (And take note: it does not say,

"Just as He is jealous and vengeful, wrathful, etc. so too

yourselves.") Malbim directs us to the verses: Who is the man who

desires life, who loves days to see goodness? Guard your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceitfully.

Shun evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it, thus hinting that the goal of life is to seek and pursue

peace.

Ibn Ezra seems to

have gone even farther by concluding his comments on these verses with a

wonderful message: "The meaning is that life is for love" (Devarim 30:19). And as

R. Akiva said (Sifra

Kedoshim 2) – that is the great principle of the Torah and it

contains within itself the entire Torah.

In his book, BePardes

HaHassidut (pg. 114), Martin

Buber describes the Hassidic understanding of the commandment, Love your

neighbor as yourself, I am the Lord. He explains that, "Only he who

learns to love men one by one reaches, in his relation to heaven, God as the

God of all the world. He who does not love the world can only refer, in his

relationship to God, to an equally solitary God or to the God of his own soul (translation by Nahum Glatzer).

My teacher and rabbi, Rabbi Prof. Moshe

Greenberg (who died on Shavu'ot eve of 5770) wrote in his article "Erekh

HaHayim Bamikra" ("The value of

life in Scripture," from his book, HaHayyim Mahut Ve'erekh,

starting on pg. 109) that according to Scripture, the point of our

existence is, "partnership with the Creator of the world in the

improvement of His creation. According to Scripture's understanding, creation

has been left incomplete while man becomes adjusted to his place within it. All

other creatures are imprinted with a set way of life; only man lacks an innate

way of life, instead, he has been given the freedom to shape it through choice.

The Creator left it to man to determine his own path, while showing him life's

way and granting him the rationality needed to achieve it. This view of man

makes him responsible for his own fate and for the success of the entire divine

project. It sets before him the goal of participating in the Creator's

intention, granting his life meaning, challenge, and hope – the three spices which

make life worthwhile."

Later Greenberg writes: "In Scripture,

the value of life is based upon its being part of God above, a divine

splinter/spark embedded in a living creature."

In the early 1930s Einstein wrote similar

words when describing his world-view: "How strange is our situation, we

mortals! Each of us is here for a short visit, not knowing the reason why, yet

sometimes seeming to feel it. In our daily lives and without deeper thought,

man knows: he is here for the sake of other human beings, first of all for

those people upon whose happiness and wellbeing his own happiness depends, and

beyond them also for the sakes of the many strangers with whose fate he is

connected through binds of sympathy. I think countless times each day how my

life – inner and outer – is based on the work of others, people living and

dead, and how therefore I must struggle to give as much as I have received and

continue to receive."

Einstein continues: "I do not believe at

all in free will in the philosophical sense. Everyone acts not only due to

outer pressures but also according to inner needs. Schopenhauer's words: "Man

can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills," [Prof. Yeshayahu

Leibowitz dealt at length with the question of free will in his discussion of

this parasha, and he cites the opinions of RaMBaM (see above) and Kant, who

believe in human free will while Hasdai Crescas, Spinoza, and Schopenhauer

reject it, see his Sheva Shanim shel Sihot al Parashat HaShavua

beginning on pg. 910] accompany me since my youth. They were always consoling

and served as an ever-dependable source of patience as I witnessed the

difficulties of life and experienced them… The question of my life's purpose.

What, more generally, is the purpose of the existence of all creatures? Objectively

speaking, this always seemed to me a pointless question… the ideals that lit

my way and filled me again and again with courage and joie de vivre have

been goodness, beauty, and truth." These words seem naïve in light of

the horrors inflicted by mortal men upon each other a few years after they were

written, but I am certain that even after those years of evil Einstein would

have repeated himself and combined the ideals of "goodness, beauty, and

truth" with Greenberg's "meaning, challenge, and hope – the three

spices which make life worthwhile."

The Sages also dealt (a bit) with the

question of life and its essence. It is proper in these days of teshuva to cite

the famous disagreement about life and its point: "Our Rabbi taught: The

House of Shammai and the House of Hillel disagreed with each other for two and

a half years. These said, "It would be better for a person not to have

been created than to have been created," while those said, "It is

better for a person to have been created than not to have been created." They

finally voted and decided that it would be better for a person not to be

created than to be created, but now that he has been created, let him

investigate his past deeds, and some say: "Let him reconsider his present

deeds" (Eruvin 13b).

It seems possible to link all these ideas

together to achieve a creative and succinct interpretation of the words choose

life. To choose life is to choose the Creator's living creations which

surround us. The command to choose obligates us to sanctify – in every way we

have mentioned – the lives of "all that which has the breath of living

spirit in its nostrils" and not to sanctify death or the non-living.

It seems that the various words of Torah and

of the wise we have cited prove Prof. Greenberg's highly meaningful words,

which he personified in his life both as a great bible scholar and as a teacher

of God's word to generations of students: "The biblical message is still

surprisingly appropriate to the self-understanding and yearnings of

contemporary people."

May these words serve as a memorial candle to

the blessed memory of Prof. Moshe Greenberg.

Rami Pinchover is an engineer

Alexander of Macedon

put ten questions to the elders of the south country…. He said to them: What

shall a man do to live? They replied: Let him mortify himself. What should a man do to kill

himself? They replied: Let him keep himself alive.

(Tamid 31b, Soncino translation)

He said to them: What shall a man do to live, etc. Rashi interprets this

as having to do with pride and humility; the Arukh wrote similar things

in his entry on hai. It seems better to me to explain it plainly:

"What shall a man do to live? They replied: Let him mortify himself"

– that he should keep himself from the pleasures of this world in order that he

live in the world to come, as it is said if a man dies in a tent. "What

should a man do to kill himself? They replied: Let him keep himself alive"

– in this world with pleasures and he will die in the world to come.

(MaHaRaShA ad loc)

Sulfur and salt have burned up its entire land! It cannot be sown,

rage.

(Devarim 29:22)

R. Yehudah son of R. Ila'i said: The Land of Israel burned for seven

years with sulfur and fire, for it is said: Sulfur and salt have burned up

its entire land! In those seven years, God has already collected [the debt

of punishment] from Jeroboam ben Nevat and his companions, so that even

Jeroboam ben Nevat and his companions will live in the Messianic Age. What

saved them from the punishment of Gehinom? Burial in the Land of Israel,

for it is said: and His land shall atone for His people.

(Yalkut Shimoni Tehillim 847)

…the main point is in accordance with RaShBA's interpretation of the

verse, that if the blessed Lord gave [them] the land in order that they uphold

His covenant then, if they transgress it the gift is void. Since the covenant

is void, so is the gift of the land. That is [what they meant when] they said

that when He took them out of Egypt,

he established a covenant with them but they could claim they had been forced

("He held the mountain over them like a basin") and so the gift is

void. That is why He poured His wrath and anger upon the land alone –

unlike the case of Sodom and Gomorrah where the land's inhabitants

were destroyed. Rather, He sent them to another land so that they would wander

and sojourn in strange lands to this very day; that He had taken them out of Egypt and did

not destroy them. Therefore, when they repent in all the nations, etc. (Devarim 30:1) as when they accepted [the

Torah] in the days of Ahasuerus, then He will return and collect them from

all the peoples (30:3) when it [their

acceptance of the Torah] will be with all your heart (30:2) – without any duress.

(R. Meir Simha MiDvinsk, Meshekh Hokhma 29:23-24)

Midrashei Tzafon – From the pen of our member, Ronen Ahituv

Perhaps there is among you a man, woman, family, or tribe, whose

land? What [is the reason] for this great rage of fury?

(29:17-23)

Could it be that a single man or woman sins and the entire land is

smitten? Rather, the verse teaches us: will separate

him, and it is said the soul that sins shall be the one to die

(Ezekiel 18:20). For there is no joint

accountability for deliberate sins and we are not responsible for cheaters. And

it only says have burned up its entire land

when all of Israel

sins. And the Sages said "All Israelites are accountable for each

other" (Sanhedrin 27b) only when

they are capable of opposition and forcing their wills on others.

The drasha is based upon the transition

from the singular in the beginning of the passage to the plural in its

conclusion. It sets limits to mutual accountability and relieves us of

impracticable responsibility for the deeds of others. The expression "we are

not responsible for cheaters" is taken from the Mishnah Demai 3:5, and its

meaning is that that we are not responsible to force someone to observe a

halakha if he has consciously exempted himself from it. The Talmud in Sanhedrin

also explicitly states that we are accountable only when we have means to

oppose such sins. Despite the Sages' explicit statements, various elements

protest – without any halakhic basis – against the desecration of the Sabbath

and other violations.

We need your support in order that the voice of a religious Zionism

uninterrupted distribution of Shabbat Shalom

in hundreds of synagogues, on the Internet and via email in both

Hebrew and English.

In Israel, checks

payable to Oz VeShalom may be sent to Oz VeShalom-P.O.B. 4433, Jerusalem 91043.

US and British tax-exempt contributions to Oz VeShalom may be made

through:

New Israel Fund, POB

91588, Washington, DC 20090-1588,

USA

New Israel Fund of Great Britain, 26 Enford

Street, London W1H

2DD, Great Britain

Please note that the NIF is no longer accepting donations under $100

PEF will also channel donations and provide a tax-exemption. Donations

should be sent to P.E.F. Israel Endowment Funds, Inc., 317 Madison Ave., Suite

607, New

York, New

York 10017

USA

All contributions to either the NIF or PEF should be marked as

to NIF, please mention that Oz veShalom is registered as no. 5708.

If you wish to subscribe to the email English editions of Shabbat

please call +972-52-3920206 or at ozshalom@netvision.net.il

If you enjoy Shabbat Shalom, please consider contributing towards

its publication and distribution.

• Hebrew edition distributed in Israel

  $700

• English edition distributed via email $

  100

Issues may be dedicated in honor of an event, person, simcha, etc.

Requests must be made 3-4 weeks in advance to appear in the Hebrew, 10 days in

advance to appear in the English email.

About us

Oz Veshalom-Netivot Shalom is a movement dedicated to the advancement of

a civil society in Israel.

It is committed to promoting the ideals of tolerance, pluralism, and justice,

concepts that have always been central to Jewish tradition and law.

Oz Veshalom-Netivot Shalom shares a deep attachment to the land of Israel and it no less views peace as a

central religious value. It believes that Jews have both the religious and the

national obligation to support the pursuit of peace. It maintains that Jewish

law clearly requires us to create a fair and just society, and that

co-existence between Jews and Arabs is not an option but an imperative.

4,500 copies

of a 4-page peace oriented commentary on the weekly Torah reading are written

and published by Oz VeShalom/Netivot Shalom and they are distributed to over

350 synagogues in Israel

and are sent overseas via email. Our web site is www.netivot-shalom.org.il.

Shabbat Shalom is available on our website: www.netivot-shalom.org.il