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HOW FAIR ARE YOUR TENTS, O JACOB, YOUR DWELLINGS, O ISRAEL!
(Bamidbar 24:5)
Your dwellings
[mishkenotekha] - How fair are they even when they
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
requires of you: Only to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk modestly
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The Sages held that these words summarize the hundreds of demands originally
made of the Jewish People, incorporating them all in a mere three commandments: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
you, you who dwell in the clefts of the rock, in your lofty abode. You think in
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
consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers - what
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
was a great sage among the sages of the Mishnah, and he was the ‘arms bearer'
of King Ben Kozibah, and he said of him that he is
the Messiah, and he and all the sages of his generation thought that he was the
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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