Friday, May 17, 2013

behar bechukosai - shavuos


i think we've discussed before the following question: how was moshe rabbeinu allowed to break the luchos when bnei yisrael sinned.  wasnt he violating the issur of lo taasun kein lashem elokeichem (and this was after mattan torah, so its a real question.)  i think there are a few answers that one could say, but i think the one i'm about to say is the simplest and most direct explanation.

parshas behar begins by telling us vayidaber hashem el moshe bihar sinai - these parshios were said at har sinai.  coming off of the whole sefer vayikra until now, which seems to have been said from the ohel moed (vayikra el moshe vayidaber hashem eilav me-ohel moed lemor), this is a little strange.  (we know that rashi quotes chazal, mah inyan shemittah eitzel har sinai- to teach that all the mitzvos were said at sinai.  i was thinking of writing up my chaburah from this summer about this topic - maybe ill still do that.)

the ibn ezra explains that really behar - bechukosai belongs back in the area around parshas mishpatim.  behar bechukosai contains the bris (blessings and curses) that hashem established with us at har sinai when we said naaseh vinishma.  the torah delayed recording this bris until now because since a large part of the bris is about keeping shemittah and yovel, the torah wanted to specify the halachos of shemittah before recording the bris. (why these mitzvos are so much more important than everything else is a good question.  but its pretty clear that they play an especially significant role.  the pasuk emphasizes that when bnei yisrael are exiled, the land will rest all the shmittos it was supposed to, and chazal say the length of galus bavel was exactly in accordance with the number of shmittos and yovlos bnei yisrael didnt keep.)

the ramban, lishitaso, explains how the torah is really kiseder.  in parshas mishpatim, the torah records the bris bnei yisrael entered into with hashem before cheit ha-egel.  but when bnei yisrael sinned, it was כאילו נתבטלה הברית ההיא אצל הקב"ה - as if the first bris with hashem was nullified.  as such, they needed a new bris.  hashem wanted the second bris to be stronger than the first, and as such, put the brachos and the tochacha into this second bris.

this bris is first mentioned now because when moshe came down from har sinai on yom kippur, he immediately commanded  bnei yisrael in mileches hamishkan. when the mishkan was finished, he had to teach all the halachos of karbanos and the like.  once the rest of sefer vayikra was finished, moshe rabbeinu called klal yisrael together and had them enter into this second bris that hashem had commanded him about bihar sinai.

the rosh quotes this ramban, but with a sharper formulation: וכיון שחטאו חשב משה שכל הציוויין נתבטלו ושבר הלוחות .  moshe's breaking of the luchos was a reflection of the fact that he thought that the bris klal yisrael had with hashem was over. why was it muttar?  because  moshe rabbeinu thought there was no more torah anymore- this is quite a scary thought.

tosfos in kesubos 72a has an interesting question about sefiras haomer.  the torah says u-sifartim lachem - hence theres a mitzvah to count sefiras haomer.  by a zav / zavah, the torah says visafrah lah shivas yamim - they should count shivah nekiim.  if this is a mitzvah just like sefiras haomer is a mitzvah, why doesnt a zavah make a bracha when she counts each day of the shivah nekiim?  answers tosfos - if the zavah sees dam on any subsequent day, then retroactively we know that the days we thought were part of the shivah nekiim actually were not part of it - hence retroactively there was no mitzvah to count those days, and any bracha made would turn out retroactively to be a bracha libattalah.  but sefiras haomer - nothing can happen in the future that will make these days retroactively not yemei ha-omer.  hence, we count with a bracha.

(agav- tosfos is a huge chiddush that there is a mitzvah for a zavah to count the shivah nekiim out loud.  the ramban, sefer hachinuch, and the rambam give a a different answer to this question (the sefer hachinuch explicitly in this weeks parsha, the ramban implicitly in parshas emor, and the rambam in sefer hamitzvos even less explicitly) - without a mesorah that visafarta means a mitzvah to count out loud, pashut pshat is that it means to just keep track of the time, but its not a mitzvah in and of itself.)

biderech drush - tosfos is an amazing havtacha.  the ohr hachaim draws the parallel that just like a niddah counts 7 days until tahara, we count 7 weeks until our tahara and our kabbalas hatorah.  but tosfos highlights the difference: a zavah has no guarantees - at any time, she can see dam and her count goes out the window.  we are guaranteed our tahara.

when you think about it, who said we can assume that shavuos, what we are counting towards, will come?  moshe rabbeinu thought that because of our sins, the bris would be battel.  are we really deserving of this bris with hashem that we will enter into this shavuos?  the chiddush of tosfos, and really, the new bris that hashem gave us in this week's parsha, is that no matter what, the bris stands. וַאֲנִי זֹאת בְּרִיתִי אוֹתָם אָמַר יְקֹוָק רוּחִי אֲשֶׁר עָלֶיךָ וּדְבָרַי אֲשֶׁר־שַׂמְתִּי בְּפִיךָ לֹא־יָמוּשׁוּ מִפִּיךָ וּמִפִּי זַרְעֲךָ וּמִפִּי זֶרַע זַרְעֲךָ אָמַר יְקֹוָק מֵעַתָּה וְעַד־עוֹלָם

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