פרשת במדבר
This week’s Parsha deals primarily with Moshe’s commandment to count the Jewish people with an extremely thorough census, and how he successfully carried out that commandment. He was to count every single Jewish male, starting from infants who were only one month old. However, Chazal tell us, that Moshe wasn’t sure how to go about this commandment. He approached Hashem and said, “How am I to know how many children are in each tent? I can’t very well go barging in on each family’s camping area, as that would breech the rules of modesty and appropriateness”. Hashem responded by saying that Moshe should just do what he was commanded, and that He would take care of the rest. Indeed, Moshe did as he was told, and as he approached each tent, Hashem’s Shechina descended and a Bas Kol projected from the tent informing Moshe of exactly how many family members were inside.
However, R’ Chaim Shmuelevitz expressed a mild puzzlement at this Chazal. Hashem had just commanded Moshe to go count the Jewish people. Certainly Hashem is aware of the laws of modesty, as He wrote them, yet he still commanded Moshe to go count the Jews. If so, what was Moshe worried about? R’ Chaim explains that Moshe knew that all the ways of the Torah are pleasant and appropriate. He therefore assumed that since Hashem was asking him to do something inappropriate, perhaps he misunderstood what Hashem was asking of him. He therefore felt the need to clarify with Hashem that he, in fact, understood what he was to do. In the end, his doubts proved accurate because Hashem clarified that Moshe’s original understanding was not correct, and he was therefore able to avoid a major faux pas in trespassing into the Jews’ tents.
R’ Chaim extrapolates a critical foundation in proper behavior from this Chazal. We find that it is impossible that keeping the Torah precisely can ever generate a breech in appropriate conduct, and if it seems to, than a person must reevaluate where he has gone wrong in his Torah observance. If a person finds themselves offending people, and causing a generals sense of discomfort because of his beliefs, chances are he is doing something which is not in line with the Torah. R’ Chaim brings a shocking Ramban to bolster this notion. The Ramban asks why Yosef had to leave his garment in Potiphar’s wife’s hands when he fled from her. Couldn’t he have just freed himself from her grip by overpowering her? The Ramban explains that while he certainly could have done so, such an activity would have constituted a slight to her honor, as she was a very important woman, so even though it meant compromising his own reputation, he simply left his garment in her hands instead of freeing himself by force. Let us analyze this bizarre situation. This woman had been trying relentlessly to get Yosef to sin with her and cause him to be jettisoned from two worlds. She was willing to do anything to get her way. Yosef had suffered enough to fill many volumes at her hands, and avoiding her was what the Torah demanded of him at that point. Yet with all that, he felt that he could not justify keeping the Torah at the expense of compromising his level of derech eretz toward her. Such is the extent, says R’ Chaim, that this principle applies!
R’ Chaim, during a different talk, went even further in saying that if a Jew doesn’t have proper manners, all the Torah he learns is worthless. The well known Midrash at the beginning of Parshas Vayikra illustrates this poignantly. The verse says, “And Hashem called out to Moshe, and he spoke to him”. The Midrash explains this apparent redundancy by saying that although Moshe knew that Hashem wanted to speak with him, he waited patiently outside the tent of meeting to be called officially, until entering. The Midrash says that we see from Moshe’s behavior how critical derech eretz is, and that any Torah scholar who does not have it, is worse than a rotten carcass on the side of the road. Moshe had already single-handedly been Hashem’s conduit to bring the Jews out of Egypt, split the sea, miraculously provide sustenance and water for the Jewish people, and even brought down the Torah. That is a pretty impressive résumé! Yet had he not excelled in proper manners, in waiting to enter a room until he was called, all these impressive accomplishments would have been for naught! Such is the level of esteem in which the Torah holds derech eretz.
How would we define derech eretz? It seems from the above quoted sources that the common denominator for every level of derech eretz is mutual respect. To respect another human being by ensuring their dignity and recognizing the fact that they were created in the image of Hashem. Every human being needs to be validated and treated with respect, and doing so constitutes basic derech eretz. In fact, I once heard that there is no greater gift that a human being can bestow on his fellow, than validating his existence. Whether it is the delight we show when we see somebody we haven’t seen in a while, or the enthusiasm we show when we greet our peers in the morning, these are all excellent opportunities to exercise one’s level of derech eretz. Obviously, it must be sincere. If these displays of mutual respect are contrived or superficial, the person we are trying to validate will feel humored and the exact opposite effect will take place. Hashem endowed every human being with some admirable traits and if we choose to focus on that trait, we can successfully implement derech eretz toward any human being. R’ Avigdor Miller used to tell people that he can look at anybody’s face and see the image of Hashem there, because everybody has something special and unique to offer. I believe that we have all heard the Rosh Yeshiva say that on numerous occasions.
R’ Pam, the former Rosh Yeshiva of the Torah V’daas Yeshiva once said, that if you scrutinize any Jew, you can always find at least one trait that they excel in, and often, you will find that they have achieved so much in that trait, that their actions mirror those of the Gedolim! He related one incident which demonstrated this. His mother had a housekeeper in New York who was a widow, and couldn’t afford basic necessities. For income, she used to clean peoples’ homes and do household chores. One time another widow approached her and shared with her that she couldn’t afford her medical expenses. The first widow, without hesitating, pulled out a large sum of money and handed it to the second widow, who passed away not long after that. Rav Pam’s mother attended the funeral, and she heard the first widow murmuring under her breath like a mantra how she forgives the loan, and how she never expected to be paid back so that the second widow’s Neshama would not be tormented because of the unpaid loan. I think if we look around, we can all find a similar story in every Jew we meet, whether in the Beis Midrash, or even on the street.
May we all merit to develop this crucial trait of derech eretz!