Maintaining Momentum
Adapted by Channie Koplowitz Stein
Typically, Parshat Nasso and Parshat Beha'alotcha are read the two Shabbatot immediately following Shavuot. We have spent forty-nine days preparing for the special day of revelation and connection with Hakodosh Baruch Hu, and we have achieved that apex of experience on Shavuot. How do we carry that emotion and inspiration forward? What clues can we find in these parshiot that will provide the momentum for further ascension?
In Beer Hachaim, Rabbi Biederman makes an interesting observation. He notes that the other major foot holidays, Pesach and Sukkot, are observed for a full week. However, Shavuot is mandated as only one day [in Eretz Yisroel]. However, the special holiday sacrifice could be offered all week. We can extrapolate that the sanctity of Shavuot, although not invested with its stringencies, extends into the week following it. Our challenge is to find a means of accessing it.
Rabbi Biederman cites various verses that help us understand that this is our responsibility. First, Rabbi Biederman points to Moshe Rabbenu. Moshe's first encounter with Hashem was at the burning bush. Moshe sees the burning bush and says, "Asurah na v'ereh.../Let me turn and see." While the terminology is generally interpreted to mean let me go closer to examine this phenomenon, Rabbi Biederman suggests that Moshe is internalizing this vision. Moshe is saying, "When I turn away/leave, let me continue to see..." Further, citing the Admor of Setrikov, Rabbi Biederman notes that in Tehillim, [one of the chapters we recite in Hallel] the chapter states, "The sea saw and fled..." In the verse immediately following, we ask the sea, "What is it to you/why, O Sea, do you flee?' Rabbi Biederman notes that only by stopping and asking the significance can we begin the process of internalizing the experience.
Parshat Nasso discusses the dedication of the Mishkan and its vessels. In speaking of the Altar, the Torah says, "This is the dedication of the Altar on the day it was anointed..." Several verses later, the Torah continues with, "This was the dedication of the Altar after it was anointed." Simply put, that dedication is not meant to be stagnant, but is meant to continue forward beyond the moment. This is especially true for the day after Shavuot, the day Moshe actually brought the Torah to us from Heaven.
The construction of the Mishkan has been completed and dedicated. It is time now to inaugurate it with the sacrificial offerings. This passage, however, begins with a word usually associated with impending tragedy rather than with celebration. "ויהי/veyehi/It was on that day..." That word has always conveyed an awareness of oy vey, problem awareness. How could this special day of the Mishkan's dedication become a cause for alarm?
Just as Shavuot took preparation until we achieved the revelation of Hashem's presence, so too did the Mishkan require months of work and preparation for its completion and for the day Hashem would reveal His Presence within. Rabbi Shapira, in Chazon Lamoed, recognizes a problem here similar with that of Shavuot: After all the preparation and anticipation, after having reached our goal, would the excitement cease? Would we now be left without a mission to inspire us? We must not fill ourselves with gloating at our accomplishment. Rather, we must stoke our desire for Torah, for serving Hashem. It is the desire for something specific that gets us up in the morning. The snooze button and tiredness are just excuses to stay in bed when we have nothing to motivate us to get up and do. If we do not move up, we will surely slide down, for, as Rabbi Roth zt”l notes, citing Mishlei, nothing remains static. By nature, everything that does not rise will be pulled down by the power of gravity and inertia.
Rabbi Frand sees a similar message in the ladder of Yaakov Avinu's dream. The ladder is a like a moving escalator. If we just keep walking at a somewhat brisk pace, we will simply remain in place. If we really want to ascend, we must push ourselves to walk quite briskly and run up. Anything less will take us down. In life, there is no standing still.
The power of desire is no more clearly demonstrated than by the inverted "nuns"in Parshat Beha'alotcha that bracket the cloud signal for Bnei Yisroel's travels in the desert. The Medrash tells us that this passage is set off with brackets to separate three tragic behaviors of Bnei Yisroel. First, as soon as the cloud rose, Bnei Yisroel were ready to run away from Mount Sinai, from the greatest connection to Hashem ever experienced. With that, they were also hinting at their desire to stop studying the Torah that they had been studying for the last three days. And just a short while later, Bnei Yisroel started complaining about the heavenly food Hashem sent them daily, missing the watermelons, cucumbers, and free fish they ate in Egypt. What defined Bnei Yisroel at these moments was not what they experienced but where their minds were during and after the experience, what their goals were.
The Chofetz Chaim zt”l relates the situation of the Cantonists, those Jewish children who were forced into Czarist military service and hard labor for a twenty five year term. Most of those, after their service was over, did nothing more than sit idly by an open fire. After all, for all those years all they could dream of while they worked was such minimal comfort as rest and warmth. Rabbi Roth zt”l here compares some of Bnei Yisroel with those Cantonists: Although they were physically involved in learning Torah, their minds were on the watermelons.
Observe our children and young men today. When a Torah session or class is over, who quickly slams his Gemarra shut and runs out to lunch? Who slowly closes his sefer, kisses it gently, and walks slowly out of the Beit Medrash? That is the test of a true masmid, one who learn for the sake of learning.
But desire alone is not enough, teaches us Chazon Lamoed. Desire left in limbo dissipates. It must be concretized through action. Avraham Avinu was completely ready to do Hashem's will and sacrifice his son. When Hashem then countermanded the order and told Avraham not to harm his son, Avraham needed a positive outlet for his desire to serve Hashem; Hashem arranged for Avraham to see a ram so that he could channel that desire rather than let it die within him.
Shavuot is meant to bring us back to the high spiritual level we felt at Sinai. But if we want to retain that feeling, we must concretize it with an action. You can take on a new mitzvah or concentrate more strongly on an aspect of a mitzvah you already do, such as one paragraph of bentching. The desire must be awakened through action.
We can use any of the three areas of mitzvah performance in our dedication: between man and his fellow man, between man and God. or between man and himself.
We can start with our relationship to others, whether as individuals or as groups. Let us take a message from Bnei Yisroel at the foot of Sinai, ויחן העם/the nation camped as one man united with one heart, they found חן/favor and love in each other's eyes. Loving my fellow Jew gives me a better grasp of my Torah studies, writes Rabbi Z. M. Zilberberg. See the good in others, for all of Bnei Yisroel have some part in Torah. Step outside your ego. Find a way to benefit others.
Rebbetzin Smiles related a story from Rabbi Wallerstein's book. In it there is a test of applicants for a job. The situation: It is raining. Driving in your car, you pass a bus stop st which three people are waiting, a friend, an older woman who needs to get to the hospital, and your fiancé. You have room for only one in your car. What do you do? The correct answer? Give the car keys to your friend to drive the lady to the hospital while you wait for the bus with your fiance. That is truly analyzing a situation for how best you can help others. [And hopefully you had an umbrella.]
Rabbi Schorr notes that an alternate name for the holiday is Atzeret. That can be translated as either stop or as ruler and king. [צר and שר are related words.] Every Shavuot, we should think of ourselves as priests and officers of Hashem, and stop to again accept the "yoke of the Heavenly Kingdom. Create the aura of sanctity within ourselves by acknowledging that much behavior is just inappropriate for our status and we must stop.
When Bnei Yisroel arrived at Sinai. Hashem instructed Moshe to speak with the Nation. In what appears to be redundancy, Hashem tells Moshe, "Thus תאמר/shall you say to the House of Jacob and תגיד/relate to the Children of Israel." Rashi famously interprets this as, "Say softly to the women," and, "Relate harshly to the men." Rabbi Nevenzahl agrees that the two terms imply the difference in tone, but he suggests that the two terms refer to the goal, to be a holy nation and a kingdom of priests., and the two differing terms mean neither to add to the mitzvoth nor to detract from them.
Rabbi Nevenzahl then presents us with a deeper reason for reading Megillat Ruth on Shavuot, a reason that ties in with our earlier discussion. Rabbi Nevenzahl suggests that Ruth is a repair for the fault of her ancestor, Lot. In separating from Avraham and choosing to settle in Sodom, Lot was lured by the abundance of green pasture for his many flocks. His desire for wealth and earthly pleasures led him astray. In contrast, Ruth was born a princess, raised in a wealthy palace, yet she gave it all up to follow Naomi and join the Jewish Nation, substituting the desire for material wealth and physical comfort for the sanctity of joining the holy nation. From this line, we can learn how important it is to choose our environment carefully, a neighborhood or a job that is conducive to a proper life style.
Rabbi Mattisyahu Salomon zt”l asks how we become closer to the Creator? In answer to the question, he cites part of the Yom Tov Mussaf: "You chose us among the nations, you loved us and raised us up... and sanctified us with Your mitzvoth..." It began with Hashem's choosing us, and through the progression He brought us close to Him. But why did He choose us? Rabbi Salomon zt”l posits that Hashem saw in our ancestors, the Patriarchs, the refined character/middos that would be conducive to creating sanctity. Our language itself is a holy language. It contains no obscenities. or vulgarities. Such language presents an invisible barrier to forbidden relationships. Unfortunately, the language we hear in exile is contaminated, and we must be wary not to contaminate our speech with the vulgar terminology often rampant in our society.
Words have power. They are creative and transformative, reminds us Rabbi Schorr in Halekach Vehalebuv. To illustrate this point, Rabbi Schorr notes that a nazir, although he may abstain from wine and haircuts, and all other nazarite restrictions, does not become a nazir unless he verbally vows that he is becoming a nazir. On the positive side, the verbal blessings of the Priests are themselves powerful. Through holy and uplifting speech, we become sanctified.
Parshat Nasso, immediately after Shavuot tells us how to retain the aura of Shavuot. As the Ibn Ezra zt”l points out, nazir is from the root of nezer/crown. The nazir was prompted to take on this vow because he witnessed an ishah sotah/a woman in halachic disgrace. To ensure that he himself would not fall into such questionable behavior, he took on a vow of abstinence that would keep him a sovereign over his desires.
Parshat Nasso, the longest Parshah in the Torah, is 176 verses long. This has the same number of verses as Chapter 119 of Tehillim. Each of these is 22 cycles of eight, 22 being the number of letters in the Holy Language of the Torah. Rabbi Wolfson discusses the significance of these numbers in relation to sanctity. Seven, he reminds us, represents the world of nature, infused with the element of spirituality. Eight, however, rises above the natural to the supernatural. We perform circumcision on the eight day as a symbol of our desire to enter the Godly, supernatural world; we celebrate Chanukah for eight days because the miracles transcended the natural world. There are seventy nations in the world, but Israel transcends nature and is not included in those seventy.
Returning to out discussion of the nazir, we note that the Haftorah of Parshat Nasso is the story of Shimshon, the most well known nazir. The most prominent feature of a nazir is his abstention from יין/ wine whose numerical value is 70. The nazir abstains from wine in his desire to rise above his earthly desires to the realm of the eight, represented by oil/שמן. The nazir has resolved to retain his feeling of awe by taking on the oath of becoming a nazir for thirty days. If we wish to retain the spirituality of Shavuot beyond the seven weeks of sefirah that culminated in Shavuot, we should do so by also making a resolution that will remove us, however slightly, from the lures of the physical, mundane world. Perhaps resolving to put a time limit on your involvement with technology, or making sure you say at least one uplifting word a day to a neighbor -- something small can be very effective.
Most people try to rise. What Rabbi Pincus zt”l points out is that simply jumping up, even 100 times, will not raise you, for gravity will inevitably pull you back down. To rise, you must rise above the gravitational pull of old earthly habits by moving away from the physical place that is pulling you down. [Every rocket must have powerful boosters to lift it beyond the gravity of earth until it reaches space. CKS] By abstaining from wine, the nazir has separated himself from the symbol of earthly, physical passion.
This separation from wine is not usually a major life changer. Similarly, writes Rabbi Zilberberg, we can also make small changes for big results. Perhaps resolve to keep your devices turned off throughout davening, to not think about money, your bills, or your work schedule at that time. The nazir is given this respect because he has pulled himself away from the world of seven to step into the world of eight. We want to move beyond the seventh week of Shavuot into the world of eight. Any small step you take in this direction is beloved by God. Keep the kedushah of the seven by infusing your worldly actions with godliness, with Shabbat, with Shavuot, and then draw it forward into the eighth.