פרשת דברים וענייני התבוננות
Chumash Devarim opens up with Moshe Rabenu addressing the Jewish people and summarizing for them the many events that happened during their travels in the desert. Rashi explains that although this accounting of Moshe seems like an innocuous list of events, in fact Moshe was subtly rebuking them for each time that they had sinned in the desert by aggravating Moshe and Hashem. Rashi goes on to explain that the Torah is teaching us proper conduct that it is appropriate to give rebuke at the end of one’s life because it will be taken more to heart and because it will not need to be repeated twice.
However, when one sees the incredibly subtle and delicate way in which Moshe chooses to reprimand the Jewish people, one can’t help but be shocked when one comes to the Haftarah. This week’s Haftarah is a full page of the prophet Isaiah offering blistering reproach upon the Jewish people in which he does not seem to be pulling any punches whatsoever. How then do we explain the contrast between the refined way that Moshe seems to scold the Jewish people, and the more obtuse approach of Isaiah?
R’ Leib Chasman offers a very interesting explanation for this discrepancy. R’ Leib explains that man is created as the choicest of all beings on this earth. But the primary quality which makes man so unique is his ability to think and ponder his situation. Only when man sets time aside to consider his existence and the purpose of it, and whether or not he is properly living up to that purpose, is man’s existence considered special. However, when a man goes through his life, without ever stopping to consider these fundamental questions, his life is no different then an animal’s life. With this explanation, we can now understand the difference in approach between Moshe and Isaiah. Moshe was living in a time when the people of his generation had integrated this idea of the need for contemplation and therefore had no need to be any more explicit in his rebuke as the Gemara says, “When speaking to a wise man, a mere hint is sufficient”. Whereas by Isaiah’s time, the Jews had fallen to the point where they were to longer taking the requisite time out to ponder their actions, and Isaiah had no choice but to bludgeon the Jewish people with uncharacteristically explicit words of reproach in order to try to get them to change their ways.
Truthfully, this concept of contemplation has always been a primary pillar in Jewish faith. The Ramban asks at the end of Parshas “Bo”, why doesn’t Hashem perform miracles for the Jewish people in each and every generation, like He did during the exodus from Egypt? The Ramban explains that such a display would be a coarse and unnecessary display of Hashem’s power. Hashem performed acts during the Jews’ departure from Egypt which were so undeniable, that to this day, these miracles are accepted by Jew and gentile alike. Hashem purposely did this because He expected Jews throughout the generations to look back on these undeniable miracles, and meditate upon them, and this way, they would always know that there is a God in Heaven who watches over them. We see clearly from this Ramban that each and every Jew is required to use his power of meditation in order to produce his own belief in God. Parenthetically, R’ Yisroel Silanter was once staying at an inn when one of the people present began to boast about how bright his young son was in school. R’ Yisroel politely asked the father if he wanted him to examine the boy. At this point the young man proudly whipped out his report card from school which portrayed undeniably the boy’s scholastic achievements. R’ Yisroel turned to the delighted crowd and exclaimed, “This is why Hashem has no need to perform fantastic miracles in each generation. In Egypt, Hashem established Himself and his relationship to the Jewish people in a way that would be undeniable throughout history. All they need do is look back on these miraculous events and ponder them, and they would know instantaneously the extent of God’s power and love for us. He has no need to prove himself over and over again, and to do so would be extraneous.”
The Chovos Halevavos (Sha’ar Habchina, Chapter 5) goes one step further then the Ramban. He says that one does not need to look all the way back to the exodus from Egypt in order to develop a powerful belief in the omnipotence of his creator, but rather it is sufficient to look in his own generation. If one merely contemplates the miraculous existence of the Jewish people from one generation to the next, one will see clearly that were it not for Hashem’s direct intervention, we would have been extinct long ago. From inquisitions, to pogroms, to expulsions, to torture and mass murder, there is no rational way that we could have survived with our bodies and spirits in tact unless God miraculously made it so. Either way, whether we learn like the Ramban, or the Chovos Halevavos, it is clear that in order to realize Hashem’s glory in the world, one needs to meditate upon it and it will easily come to him.
A third way that perhaps we could suggest to realize Hashem’s grandeur in the world is to simply step outside and have look around as the verse in Isaiah (40) says, “Lift your eyes to the heavens, and see who created these things”! When one sees the incredibly complicated universe and how every single component in it works in harmony and symbiotically, one can’t help but develop a deep awe for its creator. From the planets, to the stars, to the galaxies, to the creatures that live in the depths of the ocean, when one contemplates the perfection of it all, one will inevitably see the impossibility for all of this to be arbitrary.
I would just like to conclude by pointing out that perhaps one of the most fundamental applications of this human ability to meditate, is our ability, and indeed our obligation to meditate upon the correctness of our actions. The Mishna in Avos says that if one contemplates three things, he will never come to sin. He must know where he came from, where he is going, and to whom he must give accounting for all of his actions. People in general don’t like scrutinizing their actions because it may mean admitting that perhaps their search will yield the knowledge they are not quite performing up to par, however this process is incumbent upon every Jew. In fact, no prophet or wise person has the ability to scrutinize one’s actions like he himself. R’ Shach used to illustrate this with the Ran in Nedarim which is quite apropos. The Gemorah says that they asked all the prophets and wise people why the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed and nobody knew! Finally God Himself told them that it was because they didn’t make a blessing on the Torah first. The Ran explains that this means that they didn’t learn Torah for the sake of Heaven. R’ Shach asks, if this is true, this seems like a gross error. How come nobody could identify it? R’ Shach explains that clearly, this fault of “not learning Torah for the sake of Heaven” was very subtle, so much so that it was completely imperceptible to anyone on the outside. If so, asks R’ Shach, the punishment doesn’t seem commensurate with the crime? If even the prophets couldn’t perceive the subtlety of this sin, could the average layman have been expected to notice it and do something about it? R’ Shach answers that from here we see the incredible standard which Hashem expects us to scrutinize our own actions, and even things that prophets couldn’t identify, we are expected to not only identify, but rectify in ourselves!
May Hashem help us to utilize this uniquely human gift of meditation to improve ourselves in every way!