פרשת נח
This week’s Parsha describes how shortly after creation, the tendencies of man had gone so awry that Hashem regretted His decision in the creation (as it were) and decided to completely destroy what He had crafted. Chazal teach us that there were many forms of perversions and evil that were going on in the world at that time. There were severe breaches in the realm of modesty and idol worship. There was murder and many other terrible crimes going on. Interestingly enough, Chazal teach us that the straw that broke the camel’s back was theft. When Hashem saw that people were taking each other’s property without permission, He decided that He could no longer justify the existence of the human race. This Chazal seems very strange! Granted that theft is an unconscionable crime, but pitted against the aforementioned offenses, it seems somewhat petty. After seeing the human races’ descent into murder and hatred, it was specifically theft which sparked Hashem’s decision to bring destruction onto every living inhabitant?
R’ Gedalya Sher, explains beautifully that in truth, the source of every sin on this earth is a form of theft. When one contemplates his surroundings, he realizes that everything in this world belongs to God, and it is therefore only appropriate to use these “things” to serve Him. When a person uses the pleasures and physical materials of this world for the service of Hashem, nothing could be more beautiful and lofty. However, when a person misappropriates the enjoyments of this world by sinning, he is essentially “stealing” God’s property. The Gemorah in Berachos (35) says that a person who takes pleasure from this world without making a blessing is considered to have stolen from Hashem. With this understanding, we can now resolve our difficulty. If the inhabitants of the world preceding the deluge had reached the point in which they were brazen enough to not only steal from Hashem, but they were even stealing from each other, which is a much grosser form of theft, their perversion of that particular trait must have reached a very grave state, and evidenced with certainty their propensity to transgress every single sin in the Torah. While theft may not be the worst sin, it indicates a critical distortion of human values and shows what state a person will get to very rapidly. R’ Gedalya concludes this beautiful piece by saying that the verse states that the reason Noach was saved from the flood was because he was a righteous man. We see from here that the definition of righteous is somebody who uses all of his strengths and resources in the service of Hashem, without wasting any of them, and this approach is the opposite of the qualities which would lead to theft.
Along a similar vein, the famous Rosh Yeshiva of the Ponevich Yeshiva, Rav Shach used to explain that each and every Jew needs to fulfill the commandment to walk in Hashem’s ways. The verse says, “And you shall cling to Hashem”. The Gemora asks, is it possible to cling to Hashem? He is pure fire! Rather this verse is teaching us, just as Hashem is merciful, so to must we be merciful. Just as He is kind so to must we be kind. Also, by clinging to Torah scholars, we can cling to Hashem. By doing business with them, by marrying your daughters to them, you can fulfill this dictum of adhering to Hashem. From this Gemorah we find that the Torah expects us to make ourselves as similar to Hashem as we can. We must always be aware of the image that we are projecting, and of the fact that we represent the Creator of the world. To the extent that we refine our character traits, and become people who reflect the light of God, that is the extent that we fulfill this commandment. One of the best ways to reflect God’s light is by being nice to the people around us. Everything good in this world comes from our rising above ourselves and being considerate of other people’s feelings, and everything evil comes out of our being selfish and petty, and acting without concern for our fellow man. Obviously one who steals from people and acts immorally is neglecting severely his responsibility to reflect the beauty and glory of his Creator.
R’ Shach goes on to give an example of this. When Sarah Imenu was not blessed with children, she turned to Avraham and said, “חמסי עליך” – “My anger is upon you”, and she used the same language for anger as theft. R’ Shach explains that Sarah was telling Avraham that each and every Jew has to be like God in that they bestow kindnesses on other people. When they don’t give a kindness to another that that person may have been entitled to, it is as if they have stolen from that person. One of the greatest kindnesses one Jew can do for another is to pray for their welfare. Sarah was accusing Avraham of having “stolen” a kindness from her, the kindness of prayer, and because of this, she felt that she had a right to demand what was coming to her. Based on this Chazal, it certainly behooves us to consider the type of image that we reflect, and whether or not it is consistent with how we would expect Hashem to act (so to speak) in any given situation.
R’ Shach would conclude his article by saying that on the positive side, if a Jew does in fact work on this particular trait, it stands to reason that when he begins to reflect Hashem effectively, it will show on his entire persona, so much so that he face will even begin to shine. It will become clear by looking at him that a person is looking at someone who is created in the image of God, and they can show it. The Rosh Yeshiva once said the R’ Naftali from Amsterdam used to relate to those close to him that one of his goals was to reach a state in which people could look at him and know instantaneously the correct way to act in any scenario. Indeed, my own father ZT”L was well known as one of the few people in this generation whose face shone with this special light. People who would meet him would walk away in a daze commenting to each other that they couldn’t put their finger on it, but something about that man’s countenance was brilliant.
May we all merit to serve Hashem with all our resources, and become people who truly reflect the goodness of our Creator!