Plan Ahead

Last week I wrote about Moshe teaching B’nei Yisrael a history lesson. Having majored in history during my stint at Yeshiva University in a previous historic era (I think it was the Mesozoic), I love picturing Professor Moshe Rabbeinu as Dean of the Divine History Faculty. The big takeaway? Try to analyze the past to try and understand how we got to where we are now. This week Professor Moshe describes how to prepare for the future.

Moshe begins elucidating this incredibly important issue in this verse: And now, O Israel, give heed to the laws and rules that I am instructing you to observe (LA’ASOT; perform, fulfill), so that you may live to enter and occupy the land that the Eternal, the God of your fathers, is giving you (Devarim 4:1).

In other words, if you pay close attention to keeping the Mitzvot of God, you should be ready to move boldly into the unknown future. Tomorrow will be an improvement on the present only if we remain cognizant of God’s ‘laws (CHUKIM) and rules (MISHPATIM)’. Why two kinds of Mitzvot? What’s the significance?

The Ohr Hachayim explains:

Perhaps Moses was referring to two separate incidents which had happened to him personally (when he had been remiss.) The first instance was the matter of speaking to the rock when Moses had struck the rock instead of speaking to it, in his eagerness to fulfill God’s instructions. The second instance was the matter of Zimri publicly cohabiting with the Midianite princess Cosbi when Moses had forgotten the ruling that anyone sincerely jealous (passionate?) about such a desecration of the name of the Lord is to execute the sinner forthwith without trial and regular court procedure.

Moshe Rabbeinu is explaining that his exclusion from Eretz Yisrael is his own fault for not being scrupulous enough in his observance of the Torah laws he was responsible for transmitting to the Jewish nation. I don’t believe that regular members of the Jewish nation are judged as meticulously as Moshe. I like to imagine a world where God desires a society in which the dispensers of law (like judges and police) are held to a higher standard than the regular person on the street. Wouldn’t that be cool?

So, the CHOK, or esoteric rule, describes the instruction to speak to the rock, which is in itself not the norm in Jewish jurisprudence. Miraculous communication with inanimate objects doesn’t really come up all that much. And the law, which Moshe missed, about the authority for summary execution of a flagrant, public perpetrator of a capital crime, is described as a MISHPAT.

Here’s the point: When the Jewish nation is facing an epoch making situation (like entering Eretz Yisrael or, perhaps, fighting an underground, desperate, and brutal enemy) a major step in the preparation for the coming fray is: Have I, personally, been true to the laws I hold dear? Am I worthy of the test to soon be faced?

I know that we believe strongly in praying for God’s help and support for our efforts. But notice how we express this concept in the prayer for our beloved soldiers of the IDF: and may He send blessing and success in their every endeavor.

Get it? May God bless their efforts. We don’t ask God to do it for us, on our behalf. We are obligated to do our part. Moshe understood this, and, in his final address and advice to the Jews taught this fundamental concept.

That’s why the quote says, ‘heed the laws and rules that I am instructing you to observe’. In other words to actually do them themselves, with no expectation that they can farm out the job to others. And as Rabbeinu Bechaye adds:

This verse teaches that learning, studying the Torah is not the main purpose of the Torah but performing the commandments one has studied. Our sages in Avot 1:17 stated this succinctly when they taught “not the study is of the essence but the performance, the deed.” Only performance of deeds is a guarantee of life both here and in the world to come.

Back in the parsha, we next have two verses demanding that we neither add nor subtract from the detailed demands of each Mitzvot. Neither try to do too much or too little. We must be punctilious in the performance of Mitzvot. 

Then and only then can we achieve the true aspiration and intent of fulfilling God’s demands: But you who held tightly to the Eternal, your God, are alive today, every one of you (verse 4). Eternal life and significance is achieved by following God’s Law exactly.

As Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev explains, ‘The actions of Jews make an impact both in Heaven and on earth’  The Torah and the Mitzvot teach us how to be impactful, everywhere and everywhen. 

Of course, we pray and beg God for help and support, but our fate is in our hands. When situations are difficult, daven hard, but work on yourself and your actions even harder. May God bless all our efforts! Amen!