YOU SHALL NOT TRY THE

LORD YOUR GOD AS YOU TRIED HIM IN MASSAH

(Devarim 6:16)

You shall not try the Lord your God – this is explained by

the phrase as you tried Him in Massah. That

is, do not say "If the Lord is in our midst to perform miracles for us, or

if when we serve Him we succeed, have enough food to satisfy us and live well –

then we shall observe His Torah," for the point of that [the Massah episode] was that if the Lord would miraculously

supply them with water, then they would follow Him through the wilderness, but

if not they would leave Him. This was accounted to them as a great sin, for

after it had been demonstrated to them with signs and wonders that Moses was a

prophet of the Lord and the Lord's word was truly in his mouth, it was wrong

for them to make any further trial. Anyone who would do so would not be testing

the prophet – he would be testing the blessed Lord to see if His powers were

sufficient to the task. Therefore, it has been prohibited for all the

generations to test the Torah or the Prophets, for it is wrong to serve the

Lord in a doubting fashion, or based upon demands for miracles and tests. It is

not the Lord's will to perform miracles for all persons and at all times, and

it is wrong to serve Him in order to receive a reward. Rather, one may come

across sorrow and tragedy while serving Him and while

walking in the paths of Torah; one should accept that as just, and not be like

the fools of our nation who said [What have we gained by keeping His charge]

and walking in abject awe of the Lord of Hosts? (Malachi 3:14).

(RaMBaN Devarim

6:16)

But in spite of man's

certainty that all his affairs are entrusted to God's power and that the choice

of God as his trustee is the best choice for him, he must also strive for his

welfare and choose the means that seem best to him while God is executing His

predetermined decrees. An example of this is the fact that although man's term

and the length of his life are both predetermined by God, he must for his part

strive for the means of his livelihood, like food, clothing, and housing, all

according to his needs. He cannot leave it to God, saying, "If it was

predetermined by God that I should live, why, He would sustain my soul in my

body, without food, for the whole period of my life. So I do not have to take

the trouble to find my livelihood, and I shall not exert myself."

In the same way, it is

not proper for man to expose himself to dangers because he relies on God's

predetermined fate, drinking poison, fighting the lion and other beasts without

needing to, throwing himself into the sea or into the fire, and the like. These

are things by which man is sure to destroy himself, and thus he is endangering

himself. The Scriptures have already forbidden it in their saying: You shall

not try the Lord your God, as you tried Him in Massah

(Devarim 6:16). So when a man does this, one of the two

consequences must follow: either he is killed, or he is not killed. If he is

killed, he has committed suicide and he will be punished for it as if he had

killed somebody else, although he has died this way only by God's decree and

permission, for He has forbidden us to cause the death of human beings, in His

saying: You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not

steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor (Shemot 20:13, etc.). The closer the relationship between

the killer and the killed, the greater the punishment, as it is said: Thus

all pity, and his anger did tear perpetually, and he kept his wrath forever

(Amos 1:11).

Consequently, a man who

kills himself is undoubtedly worthy of the severest punishment and the gravest

chastisement, for his case is like that of a servant whose master ordered him

to look after a place for a certain period, forbidding him to leave it until he

sent an envoy there. The envoy was delayed, and the servant left the place

without waiting for him. Thereupon the master became angry and inflicted the

severest punishment on the servant. In the same way, a man who commits suicide

passes from God's obedience to the border of His disobedience by exposing

himself to destruction.

(Bahya Ben Yosef Ibn Pakuda:

Hovot Ha'Levavot

[The Book of Direction to the Duties of the Heart]

4:4, Mansoor translation pp. 244-5)

Console,

oh console My people

Pinchas Leiser

There

are a number of Sabbaths on the Jewish calendar that are

named for their haftorah readings. The Sabbath

between Rosh HaShanah and

Yom Kippur is called Shabbat Shuva; the

Sabbath before Passover is called Shabbat HaGadol,

and the Sabbath before the 9^th of Av is called Shabbat Hazon.

The

Sabbath following the 9^th of Av, when we read the parasha Va'Et'hanan, is also

named for its haftorah (Isaiah

40): Shabbat Nahamu.

In

this devar Torah, I would like to

investigate the Hebrew root NHM, which appears frequently in Scripture and

which, apparently, takes on different meanings.

Already

in parashat Bereishit,

following the story of the creation of the world and of humanity, after the

expulsion from Eden, Cain's murder

of Abel, and the recounting of the entire book of the generations of Adam

in chapters 5-6, we read:

The Lord saw

regretted [vayinahem]

that He had made man on earth, and His heart was saddened. The Lord said,

beasts, creeping things, and birds of the sky for I regret [nihamti] that

I made them (Bereishit 6:5-7).

However, just a

few verses earlier we read in connection with Noah's birth:

And he named

him Noah, saying, "This one will provide us comfort [yenahamenu] from our work and from the toil of our hands, out

of the soil which the Lord placed under a curse." (Bereishit

5:29)

The

Holy One blessed be He mitnahem [regrets] having

created man and Lemekh; Noah's father is mitnahem [comforted] by the birth of Noah, who

was said to have found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

In

contemporary Hebrew, we only use the root NHM in the sense of consolation, but not in the sense of regret.

When

we engage in nihum

aveilim [comforting mourners], the formulaic

expressions we use are "May the Omnipresent yinahem [console] you amongst the mourners of Zion

and Jerusalem" and "Tenahamu

Starting

with Nahamu, the haftarot

following the 9^th of Av, are called the Sheva

de'Nehamuta ["The Seven of Consolation"].

At first glance, it seems that in every one of these haftarot

the root NHM appears in relation to consolation following disaster as a way of

dealing with distress. It is, then, interesting to see if the commentators

tried to explain the various meanings of NHM by way of a common denominator and

a new understanding.

Rabbi

S. R. Hirsch (on Bereishit

5:29) enlightens us with his discussion of the

various senses of the root NHM, and their common basis:

This

root has a peculiar meaning. In the pi'el: to

comfort, in nifal: to be comforted;

but

also: to alter your mind or your decision regarding some intended action;

finally, also: contrition, remorse at something which has occurred as in No

man regrets his wickedness (Jeremiah 8:6)

and Now that I have turned back, I am filled with remorse (31:18).

The

basic underlying meaning is: to change one's mind, hence repentance and

altering one's decision. Consolation is also a complete reversal of the

previous feeling regarding an occurrence… NHM [similar to Noah], is a

movement which is reversed, like nah. Hence haniham, also where it means repentance, seems to be

connected with the complete giving up of a direction hitherto held. But that is

also consolation. A painful loss sets us in motion internally; consolation

brings us to rest, closes the gap, and stays the motion. (Levi translation)

Rabbi

Yitzhak Shemuel Reggio, who

was almost a member of Rabbi Hirsch's generation, living just a little earlier

than him in northeast Italy, writes in his Torah commentary (on Bereishit 6:6):

And the Lord regretted [vayinahem] – all expressions

using the word nehamah refer to a

change of will from one plan to an opposing plan, sometimes from bad to good, sometimes the

opposite. It is known that God's will is unchangeable, but the matter is like

this: All of the blessed Lord's decrees and promises are made on the condition

that those who benefit from them remain deserving of them and do not change. When

the decree is categorical and unconditional, an oath, or a sign accompanies it,

or it is formulated as advice. In the creation story God decreed that the laws

of creation would remain in effect forever, and that is why it is said of them

that they are good. Similarly, He decreed that the human race would be

fruitful and multiply and conquer the earth, but all of that was conditional

upon humans observing the commandments of reason, avoiding oppression and

illicit sex. God knew from the start that they would corrupt their ways and

deserve annihilation – accordingly, He did not swear to those decrees at the

time of the creation, but only swore to them to Noah following the flood. From

this we can understand that the calamities of the flood did not constitute a

change in the Divine will, but rather a change in those affected by it. Because

of their evil ways they no longer merited the benefits promised to them by God

at the beginning of creation. However, since God did not reveal this secret to

humanity when He blessed it saying be

fruitful and multiply, we thought that it was as if God had regretted what

He had said…"

In addition to explaining the concept NHM as

referring to a change of will in either direction, Reggio

tries to grapple with the theological problem that arises from biblical

passages whose plain meaning seem to refer to changes in God's will regarding the creation of humanity. He does this by

attributing the change to human beings. The change associated with God actually

occurs in the consciousness of humans and derives from their unacceptable behavior.

The common element in these two 19^th

century commentaries is that the root NHM can be interpreted in a wide fashion.

All of the cases concern change; sometimes it is a change of will – a change of

a decision already taken or about to be taken. Sometimes it is a change of

mindset and of emotion following an event.

In other words, nehama

can be defined as a new vision of reality that requires that a decision already

taken be changed, or which creates a different relationship of consciousness or

of emotion that lends new significance to an event beyond our control.

This new definition allows us to contemplate

Isaiah's prophecies of nehama from a

developmental perspective. Only in the seventh week, in the haftorah

for parashat Nitzavim (or Nitzavim – VaYelekh), on the

Sabbath before Rosh HaShana do we read in chapter 61:

I greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being exults in my God, for He has

clothed me with garments of triumph, wrapped me in a robe of victory. There

were earlier attempts at consolation, but the people's response to the effort

to console them in Nahamu (the haftorah

of Va'Et'hanan, Isaiah 40) was: The Zion said: the Lord has left me,

my Master has forgotten me (the haftorah

for Ekev, Isaiah 42). The haftorah for

Ekev ends with Isaiah 51:3:

Truly

the Lord has comforted Zion,

comforted all her ruins. He has made her wilderness like Eden,

thanksgiving and the sound of music.

However,

the response of the haftorah for Re'eh

(Isaiah 54:11) is:

Unhappy,

and make your foundations of sapphires.

And

so the process of consolation continues until the seventh week, when the people

finally agree to be comforted.

In

the end of the tractate Makot (24b) we are told of how Rabban Gamliel, R. Eliezer ben Azariah and R. Akiva were walking along, and when they ascended to Jerusalem

and reached the Temple Mount,

they saw a fox emerge from the area of the Holy of Holies:

They began to cry,

while Rabbi Akiva laughed.

They said to him, "Why

are you laughing?"

He responded, "Why

are you crying?"

They said to him: "If

from the place about which it is written, And the stranger who enters there,

shall die, now foxes

prowl over it, should we not cry?"

He said to him: "For

that very reason, I am laughing. As it is written, I will bring two reliable

Zachariah son of Yevarech'yahu (Isaiah

8:2). What does Uriah have

to do with Zachariah? Uriah lived in the time of the First Temple, and Zachariah

in the time of the Second Temple! But Scripture makes Zachariah's prophecy dependent on Uriah's. By Uriah it is written, Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed

under like a field. (Micah 3:12). In Zachariah it is written, Yet again, elderly men and elderly

women will sit in the streets of Jerusalem, (Zachariah

8:4). Until I saw the fulfillment of Uriah's prophecy, I had some doubt as to whether Zachariah's

prophecy would come true. Now that I have seen Uriah's

prophecy fulfilled, I know that Zachariah's prophecy will also be fulfilled."

They spoke to him in

these words, "Akiva, you have

comforted us. Akiva, you have comforted us."

Rabbi

Akiva different reaction and his ability to console [nahem] his fellow Tanaim

is connected to his ability to hitnahem [change

his attitude], to look at reality in a different way, to take into account not

only static reality, but also the possibility of that reality changing. R. Akiva's ability to view reality as dynamic springs from his

attitude towards historical reality as an open and changing text.

It

seems that we sometimes need time in order to be consoled and see reality

differently. The transition from a crisis to a situation in which we may

recover from the crisis is a slow process because reality does not change and

we are not automatically blessed with the ability to accommodate to a

disappointing reality and to find consolation in it.

Sometimes,

someone who is blessed with consoling/changing qualities can influence his

environment and help it look at apparently harsh reality in a different way.

These

words are written in difficult days in which the north of our land has burst

into flames. Many people have been hurt and forced to leave their homes;

soldiers have been killed and injured, and the welfare of the abducted soldiers

is a cause for great concern. Similarly, people from among our Lebanese

neighbors have been hurt, including children who have no part in our war

against the cruel enemy. Therefore, we hope and pray that by the time these

words are published there will be a new reality in our country and in our

region.

These

hard events require healing and consolation. I am troubled that some of the

rabbinic voices heard in the media are not shocked by the killing of innocent

children.

We

need to undergo a process of nehama, and we

need a spiritual leadership that can – like Rabbi Akiva

– see the situation "differently," that can change and console and

sew hope, love and consolation in hatred's place.

Pinchas Leiser, the editor of Shabbat Shalom, is a psychologist

Readers respond

I would like to relate

to Ruti Lazare's article,

which appeared in the parashat Balak

issue of Shabbat Shalom.

While I found it very

interesting, the article's conclusion that Balaam should be seen as the hero of

the story and as a tzadik [saint] of

the first order seem extreme to me. The development of Balaam's personality

through the course of the parasha has firm

foundations (I think that Rabbi S.R. Hirsch takes a similar approach), but two

points require at least further study:

a) The midrashim and exegeses that brand

Balaam as wicked for the very fact that he was willing to go Moav in the beginning of the story are firmly rooted in the

plain meaning of the Torah. They may be summarized by the dictum quoted by Rashi: "A person is led in the path that he wishes to

take."

b) More importantly,

even if we assume that Balaam's development occurs after his departure and that

his righteousness only becomes apparent after he receives genuine Divine

revelation, how does that jibe with the advice he gave regarding the Midianite women? The author explicitly invites us to "ignore

the connection made by Scripture between Balaam's curse and the sin of Ba'al Pe'or." But that is

exactly the problem: one may "free oneself" of the midrash in order to investigate the plain meaning of the

Torah from a new viewpoint, but ignoring things written in the Torah itself confounds

the very attempt to create a plain reading!

I think that both of

these problems must be solved if the position taken in the article is to be

justified – I invite the author to address them. I should emphasize that the

general idea that we must try to see ourselves through other people's eyes is

well taken: here my question is what that notion has to do with parashat Balak.

Michael ben Moshe Askuli

Ruti Lazare responds:

My article is a kind of

midrash; it is not intended

to solve all of the problems raised by the story of Balak

and Balaam. By depicting Balaam as someone able to change his original

viewpoint, I did not make him into a tzadik,

but rather described him as someone who can teach us something, despite his

having been marked as an enemy. Indeed, when emphasis is placed on Balaam's

spiritual strengths things becomes more difficult for those who wish to

emphasize his failings. On the other hand, the depiction of Balaam as a

completely evil person and the neglect of his strengths does

not sit well with the fact that Scripture chose to place the praises of Israel

in his mouth – those very praises we so often quote. I wish to distinguish

between the "evil man" and the "enemy." Balaam explicitly

sided with our enemies. He helped them by revealing Israel's

weak point to them, making the Israelites into their own worst enemies. The

uncovering of the opponent's weaknesses and their use against him are the

clever tactics of one who manages to avoid direct hostilities. I am not sure

that it is correct to call such a strategy wicked. If – God forbid – Balaam had

managed to bring about a Moabite military victory over Israel,

would his sin be more forgivable?

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.

In Israel, checks made out to Oz VeShalom may be sent

to Oz VeShalom-P.O.B. 4433, Jerusalem 91043. Unfortunately there is no Israeli

tax-exemption for local donations.

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 NEW ISRAEL FUND 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 should be marked as donor-advised to Oz ve'Shalom,

the Shabbat Shalom project.

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 which

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.

Oz Veshalom-Netivot Shalom's

programs include both educational and protest activities. Seminars, lectures,

workshops, conferences and weekend programs are held for students, educators

and families, as well as joint seminars for Jews, Israeli Arabs and Palestinians.

Protest activities focus on issues of human rights, co-existence between Jews

and Arabs, and responses to issues of particular religious relevance.

5,000

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

Oz Veshalom-Netivot Shalom's

educational forums draw people of different backgrounds, secular and religious,

who are keen to deepen their Jewish knowledge and to hear an alternative

religious standpoint on the subjects of peace and social issues.

Oz Veshalom-Netivot Shalom fills an

ideological vacuum in Israel's society. Committed both to Jewish

tradition and observance, and to the furthering of peace and coexistence, the

movement is in a unique position to engage in dialogue with the secular left

and the religious right, with Israeli Arabs and with Palestinians.