Divrei Va’Eschanan
One World
HaRav Elazar Menachem Mann Shach zt”l opened a Yarchei Kallah in 5745 with the following: In Tehillim (140:8), Dovid HaMelech begs Hashem, “Guard my head on the day of nasheck.” What is “the day of nasheck”? While its simple meaning is “the day of armed battle,” the Yerushalmi (Yevamos 15:2) gleans three deeper meanings which follow the root of the letters, which means “to kiss.” The first is “when summer kisses winter;” the second is “the kiss of Gog;” and the third is “the day when two worlds kiss each other, when this world exits and the next world enters.” Rav Shach zt”l discussed certain messages from these three meanings. While he does not dwell upon the first, he does note that all the violence that we see all over the world, where every nation is building and buying more and more weapons to either attack its neighbor or to defend itself from its neighbor, to spark a rebellion or to quell a rebellion – is barely a hint, a kiss, of the future war of Gog and Magog, which Dovid was entreating Hashem to be spared from.
On the third explanation of the Yerushalmi, Rav Shach explained in depth. To the Torah Jew, every day is a day that this world and the next world “kiss,” connect. How is that? We are used to the concept of two worlds, one for accomplishment and one for reward. Says Rav Shach: See them as one world, as one continuum, as the Gemara Bavli (Brochos 18a) states, “The righteous in their deaths, are still called alive,” for they are very much alive, as alive as we are.
With that introduction, Rav Shach then delved into an even more basic issue: the purpose of life itself. Is it merely eating, drinking, and entertainment? In this week’s parsha, Moshe tells Klal Yisroel, “I implored Hashem at that time, saying, ‘My L-rd, Hashem Elokim . . . . Let me now cross and see the good land that is on the other side of the Jordan, this good mountain, and the Lebanon.’ But Hashem became angry with me because of you ,and He did not listen to me; Hashem said to me, ‘It is too much for you! Do not continue to speak with me further about this matter.’” (Devarim 3:23, 25-26) So did Moshe strive to receive Divine permission to enter Eretz Yisroel, and so did Hashem turn down his request. The Midrash (Devarim Rabbah 11:10(6)) adds details of Moshe’s plea: “Moshe asked Hashem, ‘Master of the Universe! If You do not allow me to enter Eretz Yisroel, then please, at least let me live like the wild animals of the field, which eat grass, drink water, and see the world.’ To this unusual request, however, Hashem shot back, ‘It is too much!’”
Rav Shach zt”l asks the obvious question: What possible benefit could there be to Moshe in living like an animal? He derives an answer from a posuk in Yeshaya (40:26), which states, “Raise up your eyes and see Who created these these [things]!” If we can spew out the false ideas that have infected our souls, we can then gaze at this world – and, without prompt, see the hand of Hashem, Who created it. As the Chovos HaLevavos (Sha’ar HaBechinah Chapter Five) so succinctly puts it, everything that we need to live has been provided for us, in just the right proportions and cost – the more we need something, the more abundant it is, and the less it costs us. We cannot survive more than a few minutes without air, so we dwell at the bottom of an ocean of air – the atmosphere – free for the taking. We can only last several days without fresh water, so lakes and rivers dot and jut across our land, and rainwater washes over the countryside, making water plentiful and very inexpensive. If need be, we could last several weeks without food, so huge areas of our land is composed of fertile soil, ready to be farmed, in order to provide vegetables for both us and for the animals we eat; in addition, the ocean and the seas teem with catchable fish. The result? Every neighborhood boasts at least one supermarket with a dozen aisles filled with reasonably-priced food. We constantly need clothing for warmth and for dignity, so we have been provided with vegetative (cotton and linen), animal (wool and leather), and even synthetic (nylon and polyester) resources for material, dyes to produce an endless array of colors which please our eyes, factories to produce the clothing, and of course no end of clothing stores to make our shopping trips into pleasant experiences. On the other hand, we can go years, if not our whole lives, without diamonds, so there are relatively few diamond mines, and as any chosson knows, they can be quite expensive. What’s more, every supply chain also provides us with opportunities for hishtadlus; every point of every process needs to be staffed by armies of people who earn their parnosos by helping to provide us with what we need. As Dovid HaMelech sang to Hashem in Borchi Nafshi (Tehillim 104:23-24) “Man goes forth to his work and to his labor until evening. How abundant are Your works, Hashem! With wisdom You made them all; the earth is full of your possessions!”
And of course, within every creation lie endless miracles upon miracles, every one of which reflects the greatness of the One who created it. Our bloodstreams are able to carry food and wastes simultaneously, without the latter contaminating the former. Imagine if you ordered a pizza for delivery. Half an hour later, a city garbage truck pulls up in front of your house. The driver gets out, walks around to the back of the truck, fishes around in the refuse, pulls out a full-size pie (without the box), and brings it to your door. Would you serve that pizza for dinner? Of course not! What’s more, every time we thoughtfully say the Asher Yatzar blessing, we remind ourselves that we are crafted with the utmost precision. Not one bit of us is unnecessary; if one part of us malfunctions, the entire body suffers. “Modern” medicine decided that tonsils were useless appendages, and millions of children were given “preventative” tonsillectomies, until someone discovered their key role in fighting off infections.
Hashem’s wonders extend to the animal kingdom, as well. One could spend a great deal of time marveling at the miracle of a bird in flight, from tiny hummingbirds which hover in front of flowers by fluttering their wings so fast that the human eye cannot see them, to giant condors which can catch updrafts of warm air and then float for miles, with only an occasional flap of their enormous wings.
Why did Hashem make this world so wondrously and wonderfully complex? Says Rav Shach: Kavod Shamayim! When we see Hashem’s endless miracles, we attain a greater recognition of Him. As the Rambam (Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah 2:2) explains, “When a person will contemplate His [Hashem’s] deeds and His wondrously great creations, seeing from them His endless wisdom – immediately he loves, praises, and glorifies [Hashem] and senses a great desire to know Hashem further, as Dovid said, ‘My soul thirst for G-d, for the living G-d.’ (Tehillim 42:3) And when a person mentally calculates these creations in themselves [and his puniness compared to them], immediately he is shaken backwards, and he fears and he is terrified [of Hashem], for he knows that he is a tiny creation, low and living in darkness, with a tiny mind in comparison to that of Hashem, as Dovid said, ‘When I behold the heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars that You have set in place, [I think], “What is frail man that You should remember him, and the son of mortal man that You should be mindful of him?”’” (ibid, 8:4-5).
Now, says Rav Shach, we can understand Moshe’s request. “Even if it is decreed upon me that I cannot live any more as myself,” he beseeched Hashem, “at least allow me to increase kavod shamayim. Let me live as a bird or as an animal, so that people might see me and thereby gain greater awareness of You. For the purpose of the entire universe is to increase kavod shamayaim, and should You not want me to accomplish that as a person, let me do so as a bird or animal.” In other words, life itself – any life at all – is precious, for it can become a vehicle for increasing the awareness, love for, and fear of Hashem in this world.
Therefore, says Rav Shach, those who waste their lives pursuing their nerve endings have no idea of the diamonds they are letting fall through their fingers. The concept of a “pastime,” of “marking time,” or even worse, of “killing time,” has no place in Torah. He explains the Gemara (Brachos 18b) “The wicked are considered dead, even while they are still alive” as referring to the self-contradictions that the wicked mindlessly employ. For example, here is a newborn baby, a joy to his parents. When he passes his first month, they note it with pride, and when his first birthday arrives, they make a party, complete with cake and candles. This scenario is repeated every year. Says Rav Shach: if these parents have no concept of the true meaning of life, then where is the happiness? Quite the opposite – their beloved child is now one year older, one year closer to death! If one takes the non-Torah world’s view of life to its logical extreme, then, for every second that a person lives, he is like a gosess, on his deathbed, for every one of those seconds brings him closer to the grave. WIthout Torah, life is like one long death-agony! And then? Nothing! He doesn’t expect it, and he doesn’t get it. As HaRav Avigdor Miller described the scene: Here is Isaac Asimov, author of five hundred books of science fiction and a well-known non-believer. He goes to shamayim and finds himself in front of Hashem Yisborach Himself, seated, as it were, on a high and lofty throne. Hashem looks down and, smiling, says, “Yitzele, still an atheist?”
On the other hand, there is the Am HaTorah, who know that this world and the next are directly connected. (As Rav Shach so sweetly put it, “this world kisses the next.”) When a person lives a year in this world according to the Torah, that year is his forever. Should he live seventy years and then must leave this world, those seventy years of life go with him. Therefore, “the righteous, even when dead, are still considered alive.” (ibid)
With this concept in mind, Rav Shach then introduces an even more powerful point. He brings the Gemara (ibid, 54a) which states what at first appears to be an interesting historical detail. During prayer services in the Bais HaMikdash, the leader would finish every blessing with “Ad HaOlam — Until the World.” Once the Tzadukkim came and declared this custom to be a proof for their view, that there is no next world (chas v’shalom), the Sages instituted a revised version: “Min HaOlam V’Ad HaOlam - From the World and Until the World,” to make clear that there are two worlds, this one and the next.
Asks Rav Shach, what did the original formulators of the prayer service have in mind when they crafted the phrase, “Ad HaOlam”? Until the time of the Tzadukkim, every Jew had utter clarity in this concept: that in reality, there is only one world, but that that world consists of two interconnected divisions, which we call “this world” and “the next world.” But still, it’s one world!
We see this concept clearly in one of the most well-known mishnayos in Pirkei Avos. (4:21): “Rabbi Yaakov says, “This world is like a lobby in front of the next world. Prepare yourself in the lobby, in order that you may enter the main banquet hall.” Says Rav Shach: the lobby and the banquet hall are part of the same palace; in the entrance lobby, the guests prepare themselves for the grand chassunah, which will take place in the adjoining banquet hall. Likewise, this world and the next are actually components of one eternal world; in this world, we make ourselves fit to enter the next, in the best possible way. What is the implication for us? When we are able to demolish the barriers in our minds that separate this world and the next, we can better realize that our every action and thought in this world will greatly affect our situation in the next.
Our ancestors grasped and understood this concept implicitly; they lived their entire lives in exciting preparation for their journeys to and new lives in the next world. Just as we jump out of bed on vacation days, getting up early and packing our cars with all that we need (or think that we need) for “the big trip,” so also did the Jewish people happily spend their days, busily loading their neshamos with perfection, in anticipation for olam habah. Only when non-believers arose and began to deny this reality, using the prayer in the Bais HaMikdash as a “proof,” did Chazal see a need to clarify the language of that prayer.
In theory, all this seems very logical. Still, how do we bring it into our mundane lives? Iyov (28:28) declared, “Behold (‘hain’), fear of Hashem is wisdom.” The Gemara (Shabbos 31b) comments, “In Greek, the word ‘hain’ means ‘one,’” implying that there is only one wisdom in the world. However, the Midrash (Eichah Rabbah 2:13 (17)) declares, “If a person will tell you that there is wisdom among the nations, believe him . . . that there is Torah among the nations, do not believe him,” indicating that there is another form of wisdom extant. Says Rav Shach: in order to reconcile these two statements of Chazal, one must realize that the wisdom of the nations is by definition temporal and time bound. Yesterday’s answers don’t resolve today’s questions. Every non-Jewish bookstore has a “bargain bin” of some sort, filled with technical manuals for now-discontinued computer software, outdated business-advice books, and political commentaries on situations that have been settled. On the other hand, the wisdom of the Torah is eternal; the Ra’avad’s question on the Rambam is as relevant to us as it was to the Ra’avad. And, as Iyov is telling us, only this timeless wisdom can bring us to true fear of Hashem. And in this manner, says Rav Shach, can we also reconcile the seeming contradiction between this world and the next, between “And you will gather in your grain” (Devarim 11:14) and Hashem is our L-rd, Hashem is One.” (6:4). Certainly, a Jew should take care of his day-to-day needs. However, he should not lose his head over them, allowing them to dominate his life to such an extent that he forgets who he is and why he is here in this world. If a Jew sets time for learning Torah and for proper prayer, if he educates his children to go in the proper path, if he strives to perform mitzvos whenever he can, then he is truly alive, even when he is mired in the mundane aspects of life., for then they become catalysts for him to propel himself into a higher state of preparation for the next world. Then, and only then, is he not in a state of being an eternal “gossess,” for because he is living in this world for the right purpose, he is truly alive, at all times. And because he is alive in this world, he continues to live on, into the next.