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"You Shall Not Covet"

Said Rav Huna: We find that Israel was not exiled from their land until they transgressed "They covet fields and seize them; houses, and take them away." (Micha 2:2)

"You Shall Not Covet": The Seal of the Holy One Is Upon the Mitzvot "Between Man and His Fellow Man"

Know that the prohibition "You shall not covet" and "You shall not desire" is the seal of God imprinted on the section of mitzvot between man and man in the Ten Commandments. A flesh and blood lawgiver can also command: "You may not murder, etc." But only God is able to prohibit "You shall not desire". God, who examines kidneys and heart, before whom not only are actions revealed – but also the stirrings of the heart and thought. A human being can prohibit only the transgression, and once the transgression has been perpetrated, the offender may (sometimes) brought to judgement. But human eyes will never reach the primary source and focus of crime. Once the sin has ripened in one's heart, the threat of human justice and punishment will not deter him from executing it. Therefore, the building of human administration is futile , because such a building will remain imperfect and fragile as long as it is based upon man's glory alone . . . And this is the truth of the matter: All that we term "religion" and all that we call "Service of God with heart and thoughts of truth" – these are nothing if they are not accompanied by the power to control the words of our tongue and the actions of our hand, in family and society. Only through our actions, in the broadest sense, can we prove that we are truly and honestly "Servants of the Lord" . . . Only God sees into the heart and judges man's thoughts. Every good and straightforward action must derive from inside the heart, every positive stirring in the heart must turn into action . . . this is the spirit which hovers over the foundations of God's Torah, and this is the spirit which unifies the two tablets – that of the mitzvot between man and God and that of the mitzvot between man and his fellow man – until they become inseparable.

In the mist and the cloud which veiled Mount Sinai, and after the sounds, the torches, and the shofar blasts which excite us — children of all generations who stood at the foot of the mountain and received the Torah — stands a quiet, unrecognized figure seeking her place in the camp of Israel. In the following lines, I wish to focus attention upon Tsipporah, wife of Moshe, who returns from her father's home to her husband's.

Moshe, an Egyptian, arrived in Midian as a refugee. Fortune shined upon him, and he acclimated quickly, finding a new home in the father-in-law's home: "Moshe agreed to settle down with the man." For Tsippora, the marriage was convenient, not requiring her to leave her home and to adjust to the family life of her foreign husband. When Moshe approaches Yitro to announce his departure: "Pray let me go and return to my brothers that are in Egypt," we do not hear the voice of Tsippora. Moshe takes Tsippora and his sons to Egypt. He "returned to the land of Egypt". He undergoes an experience of return; she undergoes an experience of uprooting – in silence. Unlike the story of the Akeida, no one asks what were her feelings en route, during the days between leaving Midyan until the heroic event in the night-camp. What were her thoughts, how did she envision the sons and daughters of her new people? It was clear to her that she must be part of "the story". Behind every Moshe there must stand a Tsippora. How can Moshe bring the message of redemption if he and his family have not experienced the bondage. "Because of this, Israel will have greater trust in him. As a free man in Midyan, dwelling peacefully in his home with his sons and his wife, son-in-law of a priest of the land, he would not bring them to become a nation of slaves, embittering their lives with hard labor, unless he was certain that they would soon leave and that he would soon go up with them to the Land of Canaan, and will not have to return to Midyan to take his wife and children.

The answer to these questions is to be found in the wondrous story of the night-camp, in which God wishes to slay Moshe. Tsippora, by circumcising her son, saves him from death. This is Tzippora's manner of jumping into the kiln of the Israelite people, represented by the Brit Mila. She screams a cry, sharp as a flintstone, "A bridegroom of blood", just as the Children of Israel will cry out by means of the blood on the lintel and the doorposts. Thus did Tsippora enter a blood covenant with her husband and his people. Perhaps this can be seen as the act of her conversion.

From here until our parasha of the week, no mention is made of Tsippora. Ibn Ezra suggests that she did indeed reach Egypt, but after a while she was overcome with yearning, and returned to Midyan. The popular understanding is that she never reached Egypt. So do our Sages explain in the Mekhilta of Rabbi Yishmael (Yitro, Chapter 1).

According to this midrash, Aharon, lover of peace and pursuer of peace, stands between Moshe and Tsippora. Aharon considers the mission, and therefore initiates the sending away. The first chapter in Tsippora's attempt to integrate into her husband's family ends in failure.

The second chapter begins in Parashat Yitro. The Children of Israel underwent a process of consolidation. They completed stage one of basic training, experienced the splitting of the sea, overcame Amalek, (perhaps were privileged to be present at the giving of the Torah). Tsippora missed all this. Now she desires to join, brought by her father, who returns her to her husband's tent. Right before her entry, Yitro sends a message to Moshe: "I, your father-in-law Yitro, am coming to you, and your wife and her two sons with her." Moshe goes out to greet his father-in-law, but not because of his sons and not because of his wife. Moshe is already in higher spheres. If he did indeed return to his divorced wife, it was only temporarily, until he pitched his tent outside the camp. Tzippora spends her life in an empty tent, in a foreign culture; the wife of a leader, she belongs to no man. Does she acclimatize to the camp of Israel? Is there an aperture of hope for a story of a proselyte being assimilated into the nation?

We are faced with years of silence. A flash of unclear information reaches us via the words of Miriam and Aharon against Moshe: "Regarding the Cushite woman which he took, for he had taken a Cushite woman." "A Cushite woman". This is her appellation and this is her memory. There is a school of commentary which seeks to show that she was pleasant and her deeds were pleasant, yet despite this, Moshe distanced himself from her. Some commentators attempt to construct gematriyot which compliment and beautify the Cushite. Neither approach can disengage the text from its plain and literal meaning [pshat]. They are discussing the stranger, the other, who intruded into the camp. Since Tsippora's return, nothing was heard of her. Only the midrash, with sharp vision and attuned ear, turns to the fortieth year in the desert. Miryam and Aharon have already died. The generation othose who left Egypt seems to have passed away. There is none left who remembers Tsippora's difficult days of adjustment. Until that event. The nation is camped at Shittim, and begins to whore with the daughters of Moab. Suddenly, Zimri ben Salu, leader of a Father's House of the Shim'onites, brings near the daughter of a leader of Midyan, from Tzippora's land and birthplace, before the eyes of Moshe and the people.

This midrash does not allow us to construct consoling endings . . . till her dying day she remains "daughter of Yitro". All her attempts to integrate into our people fail. Does this story tell us something about her absorption difficulties – or about our ability to absorb?

"The mountain of God': (So called) because there Israel accepted the divinity of the Holy One, Blessed Be He. (Shemot Rabba, Parasha. 2)

Our Sages intended to tell us that actually the main principle of the religion is to uproot all matters of idolatry from the hearts of the Children of Israel, and to show them that they saw no visualization, for there exists no holiness in anything created – only the Creator, Be He Blessed (is holy), Therefore the midrash said not to imagine that the mountain is holy, and because of it God revealed Himself upon it. Not so the Children of Israel. For "When the sound of the ram's-horn is drawn out, they may go up on the mountain" – the mountain is the abode of beasts and cattle. Only when the Divine Presence is upon it, it is holy by virtue of the Creator's holiness. Therefore it is said that "The location of man does not do him honor, but the man does the place honor" (Taanit 21b) This is an important concept. Therefore, in the Beit Olamim, whose holiness is forever, no one should think that the actual building is holy; therefore behind it it is permissible to touch all impurity and even that made impure by contact with corpses . . . to demonstrate that only Him, who has caused his Name to rest in this building, are you to fear, Inside it is holy, but not behind, for within are the tablets and the testaments and the sanctuary.

"Moshe hearkened to the voice of his father-in-law, he did it all as he had said"

If "Moshe hearkened to the voice of his father-in-law" than certainly "he did it all as he had said"!? – all that his father-in-law had told him, these are the words of Rabbi Yehoshua. Rabbi Elazar HaModai says: Moshe listened, and saw, and did all which God told him. (Mekhilta, Yitro, Masechet Amalek, Parasha 2)

. . . There is a difference between listening to a voice and hearing a voice. Shmiah b'kol indicates reception of the words. Shmiah l'kol indicates that the listener is taking the words to heart, carefully weighing with his intelligence. Therefore it says "He did it all as he had said." Had it been written "Vayishma b'kol" – it would have been superfluous to add that "he did it all as he had said." But since it is written "Vayishma l'kol" – meaning that he was contemplating his words, we cannot yet know that he implemented his advice. At this point he is contemplating his words, but still cannot implement them, because they have as yet not received Parashat Mishpatim (set of laws), and Moshe did not want them to render judgement by their reasoning and appraisal. Only afterwards, after he had taught them the laws, did he do all that was said.

(Malbim, Shemot 18:24)

"You should make clear to them the laws and the instructions, you make known to them the way they should go on it, and the deeds that they should do . . ." (Shemot 18:20)

Rav Yosef taught:

"vehiz'harta" (you make known to them): Written with the letter 'heh' at the end, to teach that if you yourself do not (do the act), it will not be of value if others do it. The meaning of the (seemingly) superfluous 'heh' is that if not you, no one else can come in your place, for without the Godly power of Moshe, it will not be done properly. And this too does it add: Not as you said, that only the laws and the instructions are you to make known – but not the social conventions and good customs which the sages and great men of Israel are empowered to enact without you, — such is not the case. . . but "you make known to them the way they should go," and all this is explained in the Gemorrah (Bava Metsiah 30b), all this comprises the ways of derech eretz.