Matos-Masei
How to Vow Your Audience
By Rabbi Pinchas Winston

FRIDAY NIGHT:

Moshe spoke to the heads of the tribes of the Children of Israel . . . (Bamidbar 30:2)

What will Moshe speak about to the heads of the tribes? He is about to speak about the concept of Nedarim and Shavuos - Vows and Oaths. However, is this not something that is applicable to all of the Jewish people? Why did Moshe single out the heads of the tribes specifically to teach these laws? Rashi asks this question, and answers:

HEADS OF THE TRIBES: What did he want to say here? He wanted to teach that the annulment of a vow should be through an individual who is an expert in such matters (like the heads of the tribes, assumedly), and only if there isn't such an individual available can one turn to a Bais Din of three ordinary people. (Rashi)

Why is this so important to know? Because, a person is given the power to invoke a vow or an oath, and in doing so, placing upon himself, others, or objects, a status equal to that of a commandment from the Torah. For example, just as the Torah has forbidden certain foods to be eaten, so can a person forbid other foods to himself that would otherwise have been permissible to eat; they actually become prohibited to him. If he eats such food, he is punishable as if he ate food the Torah itself had prohibited.

Likewise, through an oath, one can create a binding situation that otherwise would not have existed. He can prohibit himself from doing something permissible, or make obligatory an act the Torah did not. Failure to comply with his oath makes him culpable for punishment, just as if the "mitzvah" had been commanded by the Torah. Such is the power of speech.

Thus, before we allow someone to annul a vow, we have to ascertain that there is sufficient Torah cause to do so. Talk may be cheap to some, but from a Torah point of view, it is man's most creative power, capable of establishing reality. G-d made creation using speech, and man becomes a partner with G-d in bringing creation to fulfillment through his own power of speech.

Thus, in the script used to write a Sefer Torah, the letter Peh, which itself means "mouth," has the letter Bais inside of it (the negative space forms the letter), the first letter of the Torah and the word "Bereishis." It's as if the Bais, which represents creation, is emerging from the Peh, which it did when G-d spoke creation into being.

To sensitize us to our power of speech, the Arizal revealed that every word that leaves a person's mouth creates an angel. Good words, that is, words of which the Torah approves, create good angels, whereas bad words create bad angels, or prosecuting angels, both of which show up on our behalf or against us on Yom HaDin, the day of Final Judgment.

Thus, we have the concept of, "al tiftach peh l'Satan," which translates as, "Do not open you mouth to the Satan" (Kesuvos 8b). It seems that somehow, by bragging about something, we invite disaster, in the form of the Satan, or rather, the Prosecuting Angel (same thing) doing a serious investigation into our right to own such a good thing. Verbally calling attention to something good can create a reality of Divine judgment, as we see from the beginning of the story of Iyov. If only G-d hadn't bragged about Iyov's righteousness . . .

SHABBOS DAY:

If a man takes a vow to G-d or swears an oath to establish a prohibition upon himself, he shall not desecrate his word. (Bamidbar 30:3)

What is actually going on when a person makes a vow? Does he really affect reality, or do we just pretend as if he does?

To begin, you have to recall two of the most important relevant to this discussion. To begin with, Targum Onkeles provides a very short but crucial key to understanding the essence of this discussion, back by the creation of man:

G-d formed man from dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils a living soul, and the man became a living spirit. (Bereishis 2:7)

From this posuk, we only know that man left the stage of being a lifeless form and became a living person. The "living soul" he received brought him to life, allowing him to accomplish that which man was meant to achieve. But what was man meant to achieve?

The Talmud says:

Rebi Elazar said: Every man was created to toil, as it says, "Because man was made to toil" (Iyov 5:7). Now, I do not know if that means to toil through speech, or in actual labor; however, once it says, "A toiling soul toils for him, for his mouth compels him" (Mishlei 16:26), I know that a person was created to toil with his mouth. I do not know, though, if this means to toil in Torah or just in regular conversation. However, once it says, "This Torah should not leave your mouth" (Yehoshua 1: 8), I know that man was created to toil in Torah [through speech]. (Sanhedrin 99b)

A remarkable statement to make, and an even harder one to accept for a society that holds talk is cheap and action is everything. However, Onkeles corroborates this idea by revealing that the single biggest difference man's soul made to his being was that he became:

ALIVING SPIRIT: A speaking spirit. (Onkeles)

Even one of man's greatest creative actions, procreation, makes a reference back to speech. For Bris Milah itself means "Covenant of the Word," reminding man that, just as he is capable of performing a physical act to create something physical, so too can he perform a spiritual act - speech - and create spiritual realities. And, just as the physical act, when abused, can result in horrific destruction, so too can the spiritual act, when abused, result in horrific destruction, though it may not be apparent at the time.

Now we can better appreciate the severity of loshon hara, and the Talmud's evaluation of its potential to damage:

It was taught in the school of Rebi Yishmael: Anyone who speaks loshon hara increases his sins corresponding to three transgressions: idol worship, illicit relations, and murder. (Arachin 15b)

Coming from a world of action, it is hard to believe this can be true. Talk shows may be popular to some extent, but it is action movies that Hollywood turns out at break neck pace, and which rake in hundreds of millions of dollars. When was the last time they produced a big budget talk show for the silver screen?

However, if you think about it, worshipping false gods, illicit relationships, and murder is something we have in common with the animal world. It doesn't take much to train even larger animals to fear and worship man, and physical relationships in the animal kingdom are just that: animalistic. Murder, of course, is the name of the game when it comes to surviving out in the wild, except that it is only called "killing" since it is for survival purposes and built into the species.

In other words, it does not take a G-dly soul to perform such activities for good, so it doesn't take a G-dly soul to perform them for evil either. However, speech is, by definition, a function of our G-dly soul, and therefore any abuse of speech, is by necessity, an abuse of one's G-dly soul. Indeed, according to Kabbalah, of the four aspects of creation, man, the highest of the four after Domaim (Silent, as in the mineral world), Tzomayach (Vegetation), Chayah (Living Beings, as in animals), is labeled as a Medabehr - a Speaker.

This is certainly something to think about seriously before opening one's mouth to speak each time.

SEUDOS SHILSHIS:

According to what comes from his mouth he shall do. (Bamidbar 30:3)

That shows the exceptional importance of speech, but it does not explain how speech itself manipulates reality. To show that, we need only go back one parshah, and to a person who appeared to understand this, but in the end, really didn't. That's why his death is recorded in this week's parshah, right after this parshah of Nedarim.

Balak said:

"For I know that whomever you bless is blessed and whomever you curse is cursed." (Bamidbar 22:6)

However, Bilaam answered "If Balak will give me his houseful of silver and gold, I cannot transgress the word of G-d, my G-d, to do anything small or great." (Ibid. 18)

Why? As G-d told Bilaam,

"If these men came for your benefit, then go with them. However, only that which I tell you will you will be able to do." (Ibid. 20)

Was that only the case with Bilaam, whose power was in his mouth, as Balak said at the beginning of last week's parshah (See Rashi)? No, it is the case with every human being, as the prophet taught:

My spirit that is upon you and My words that I have placed in your mouth" (Yeshayahu 59:20)

and:

This people I created to speak My praises. (Yeshayahu 43:21)

This is what we exist to do, and speech being the breath of G-d is always the breath of G-d. The only question is, if that is the case, then how is it possible that people can speak so abusively?

The answer is not unlike the one that Rashi gives at the beginning of Parashas Noach to a similar question: How is the creation of a mamzer possible? After all, is it not G-d Who gives the soul to the body that the father and mother, in this case illegitimately, create for the child?

Yes, and that was one of G-d's main complaints against the Generation of the Flood. Not only did you sin, but you forced Me to have to put souls into the bodies of children that were born from forbidden relationships. If I didn't, G-d said, then free-will choice would suffer, since people would see that forbidden relationships do not bear offspring.

Likewise, when we speak in an "unkosher" way, we are forcing the Spirit of G-d to be party to our own abuse, which It puts up with for the sake of free-will choice. However, like the Generation of the Flood, there is a great price to be paid for such chillul (profanation), and the system of good and bad angels is the way Heaven keeps tally of the way we use our mouths during our lifetimes.

This is the power of a neder or a shavuah. We are working in partnership with the Spirit of G-d within us to establish realities meant to help us reach higher levels of growth. Bilaam understood this, and he still tried to abuse the power. Pinchas understood this as well, and used the power to save the Jewish people supernaturally, and killed Bilaam in the process. Thus, he received the "yud" in his name as a reward, which transformed his name from "peh" to "pea," from "mouth" only to "MY mouth," as in the mouth of G-d, so-to-speak.

MELAVE MALKAH:

In Preparation For Tisha B'Av, Part One

For it is not as man sees; man sees what his eyes behold, but G-d sees into the heart." (I Shmuel 16:7)

The Talmud introduces a fascinating concept:

Rav Nachman asked Rav Yitzchak: Why does it say, "I will not carry out My wrath; I will not recant and destroy Ephraim, for I am God and not a man; the Holy One is in your midst, and I will not enter a city" (Hoshea 11:9)? Because "the Holy One is in your midst" [God says,] "I will not enter a city?" Rebi Yochanan answered: The Holy One, Blessed is He, said that He would not enter Jerusalem Above until He could enter Jerusalem Below. (Ta'anis 5a)

Rashi explains the question and answers as follows: If God is in your midst, that is, if you improve your actions, will God not come into your city? The answer is, until you allow the Holy One to enter below, that is, into Jerusalem, [He says] "I will not come into the city above."

However, that is not the main point here. What is relevant to this discussion is that there are two Jerusalems, an earthly one and a Heavenly one. We can't really say that about any other city in the world, no matter how popular, big, or successful they may be. Only Jerusalem has a Heavenly counterpart, which tells you right away about the Jerusalem with which we are most familiar.

Indeed, Ya'akov himself sensed this reality the night that he slept on the Temple Mount - Har HaMoriah - and had his dream of the ladder:

Ya'akov awoke from his sleep and said, "Indeed, God is in this place, and yet I didn't know it." And he became frightened and said, "How awesome is this place! It is none other than the House of God, and this is the gate of Heaven." (Bereishis 28:16-17)

According to the Midrash, Ya'akov's dream was of the future Jewish exiles (Vayikra Rabbah 29:2), four in total: Babylonian, Median, Greek, and Roman. It was as if all of Jewish history flowed from Heaven to earth at that point, and Ya'akov lay in the midst of that flow.

Indeed, even today:

All of this [rectification] occurs as a result of His holy light, which emanates out from and dwells upon the Western Wall. From there it emanates and dwells upon Israel, and this is the holy Divine Presence . . . (Sha'arei Leshem, p. 87)

The Midrash says that Ya'akov also had a vision of the ramp leading up to the altar in the future Temple (Bereishis Rabbah 68:16). After that, he saw how that Temple would be consumed by fire, and how in seventy years, the construction of the second Temple would begin (Ibid. 69:6). And, knowing that more exiles were still yet to come after the return to Eretz Yisroel, he knew that the second Temple would also be destroyed, and that long, hard exiles would continue until the destined arrival of Moshiach himself.

The Talmud speaks of another historical relationship regarding Yerushalayim. It says:

Caesaria and Yerushalayim: If someone tells you that both are destroyed, or both are settled, do not believe him. That Caesaria is destroyed and Yerushalayim is settled, or Yerushalayim is destroyed and Caesaria is settled, believe him. (Megillah 6a)

From this statement, it seems that the two cities, Caesaria belonging to the Romans, and Yerushalayim belonging to the Jewish people, are polar extremes, radically different. Apparently, the world as it was created does not support the coexistence of such two contrary realities, and this is reminiscent of another pair of extreme opposites:

Eisav said to his father, "Is there only one blessing that you have, my father? Bless me too." And Eisav raised his voice and wept. Yitzchak his father answered, and said to him, "Your settlements will be in fat places of the earth, and [you will also have] from the dew of heaven above. You shall live by your sword, and serve your brother. Yet it shall be that when you are aggrieved, you may cast off his yoke from upon your neck." (Bereishis 27:38-40)

The Midrash explains that Yitzchak was telling Eisav that, if Ya'akov's descendants cast off the yoke of Torah, then his descendants could decree destruction upon them and gain sovereignty over of them. In other words, as long as Ya'akov remained "settled," that is, devoted to Torah, then Eisav would remain "destroyed." However, if Ya'akov became "destroyed," that is, he abandons Torah, then Eisav will become the "settled" one, controlling the world and subjugating his younger brother.

Thus, the status of Yerushalayim is also a measure of the Jewish people's place in the family of nations, whether they are its king or its servant. Thus, it is Yerushalayim specifically that Gog and Magog wish to control, for its destruction, be it physical, spiritual, or both, means that Caesaria - the world of Eisav - is able to thrive.

However, what does that have to do with B'nei Yishmael, and the Arab interference with the return to Yerushalayim and sovereignty over Har HaBayis?

The Midrash relates how Eisav wanted to murder Ya'akov [after the latter secretly took the blessings meant for his brother. However, he worried that killing him outright would bring him capital punishment from the court of Shaim and Eiver. Therefore, he schemed to involve a third party in the assassination, which he did by marrying Machlas, daughter of Yishmael (Bereishis Rabbah 67:8)

According to the Midrash, Eisav had planned to incite Yishmael against Ya'akov. For, just as Ya'akov had usurped Eisav's role as the firstborn, Yishmael's younger brother - Yitzchak Avinu - had also pushed him out of the first position in Avraham's family. And, though his scheme was never fulfilled, apparently the groundwork was laid for collaboration between the descendants of Eisav and Yishmael to conspire against B'nei Ya'akov.

Thus, the Ya'akov-Eisav relationship is the paradigm, and the Yerushalayim-Caesaria relationship is a function of it. To control Yerushalayim, therefore, is to control Ya'akov, to a large extent, and to hold off the Final Redemption, as the following makes clear:

The following great idea of the [Vilna] Gaon became known: there are only two commandments which a person's entire body has to enter into in order to fulfill them: the commandment of succah, and that of Eretz Israel. This is hinted to in the posuk, "Then His Tabernacle (succo) was in Shalem, and His Dwelling in Tzion" (Tehillim 76:3). The Gaon adds that the commandment regarding succah requires one to construct it for this purpose, that is, to fulfill a positive commandment, and not to use that which previously existed. It is likewise with respect to Tzion, as it states in the Midrash on the posuk, "A redeemer will come to Tzion" (Yeshayahu 59:20). For, as long is Tzion is not yet built, the redeemer will not come. As Chazal have said, only "after Jerusalem is built, will the son of David will come" (Megillah 17b). According to the Midrash, the Ben Dovid will not come until Jerusalem is built. (Chapter 1:7) CHAZAK!

Have a great Shabbos,
Pinchas Winston

Copyright © 2003 by Rabbi Pinchas Winston and Project Genesis, Inc.