BS”D
TRIUMPH TRUMPETS: PARSHAT BEHAALOTCHA
Shira Smiles shiur 2020/5780
Adapted by Channie Koplowitz Stein
We are all
familiar with the sound of trumpets. Throughout the ages, they heralded the
approach of kings and the call to battle. Hashem had special trumpets made for
the Mishkan that would serve these purposes as well as other purposes. In the
desert, their blasts would alert the camp to pack up and begin moving.
Enumerating the uses of the chatzotrot/trumpets, Hashem says,“It shall
be for you an eternal decree for your generations,... when you go to war
against an enemy” to “be recalled before Hashem, your God, and you shall be
saved from your foes.” You shall also sound them “on a day of your gladness,
and on your festivals, and on your new moons, you shall sound your trumpets
over your elevation-offerings and over your feast peace-offerings; and they
shall be a remembrance for you before your God, I am Hashem, your God.” Our
Sages interpret the “days of gladness to include Shabbat when the special peace
offerings of the day were brought, as were the special offerings of the
festivals.
However, a
question arises. While the festivals are referred to in the Torah as requiring
celebration with simchah/gladness, there is no such explicit connection
to Shabbat. How can we connect simchah to Shabbat? Further, Halekach
Vehalebuv raises a question on the Rambam. The Rambam, in his enumeration
of the 613 mitzvoth, counts sounding the trumpets in war and sounding the
trumpets on festivals as one mitzvah, yet he counts as separate mitzvoth the
prohibitions of different kinds of work on yom tov, and as separate mitzvoth
blowing the shofar on Rosh Hashanah and blowing the shofar [although also on
Rosh Hashanah] to signify the onset of the yovel/jubilee year. Why are
only these two areas connected as one mitzvah?
The key, suggests
Rabbi Scheinerman in Ohel Moshe, lies in remembrance. The shofar blast
is an alarm, a call to awareness. In times of war, when we fear physical
danger, the trumpet sound reminds us that it is Hashem Who decides the victor,
not the power of armies and numbers of tanks. Similarly, when one brings an
offering to Hashem, he must rid his mind of all extraneous concerns and focus
only on Hashem if he is to receive the full benefit of his offering.
In times of
calamity, we are instructed to cry out to Hashem. The shofar is a call to warn
the public of the danger so all will cry out and do teshuvah, writes Rabbi Leff
in Outlook and Insight. With this call, we testify that calamities are
not chance occurrences, but a means Hashem uses to bring us back to Him. If we
refuse to see the connection, if we mark everything up to chance, we are cruel
and are increasing the disaster. Both the good and the challenges are meant to
recall and fortify our relationship to Hakodosh Boruch Hu.
Still, how
does Shabbat fall into the official category of a day of simchah/gladness?
The Slonimer Rebbe in Netivot Shalom refers to Shir Hashirim, the
poetic depiction of the relationship between Bnei Yisroel and Hakodosh Boruch
Hu. The verse in Shir Hashirim equates Yom chatunato/the day of
his/His wedding to yom sinchat libo/the day of the gladness of his/His
heart. When the Mishkan was erected, we created a tangible connection between
Hashem and our people. The Mishkan symbolized the chuppah/marriage
canopy and ceremony. But after the chuppah comes the yichud, the
time of intimacy, the time the bride and groom focus only on each other rather
than on the outside world. This special time when we isolate ourselves from the
distractions of the outside world is Shabbat, the day of simchah.
In the introductory prayer for Shabbat, at the end of Lecha Dodi, we
sing Boee Kallah/Come Bride two times, once to welcome Shabbat, and once
to welcome the Shechinah/God’s presence.
In further support
of the theme of joy on Shabbat is the prohibition of open displays of grief,
even during the week one is observing shiva for a member of his
immediate family. Further, since Shabbat is mekor habrachah/the source
of blessings, we customarily introduce our joyous occasion on the preceding
Shabbat with an aufruf or Shabbat kallah before a wedding and a shalom
zachor before a bris.
In Techeilet
Ohr Rabbi Bernstein presents a beautiful thought. As Hashem created each
element of creation, each sang its own song of praise to its Creator. Until
Shabbat, each was an individual song. But on Shabbat, with creation complete,
all the notes and songs joined together to harmonize in a beautiful, joyous
symphony. Shabbat awakens the joy in creation, as all the individual parts were
no longer separate, but would work together in synch as part of a beautiful,
complete whole. The song testifies that Hashem is the Creator and King of the
world.
In war, we also
recognize Hashem as King. As we sounded the trumpets in wartime, so did we also
blow the trumpets to accompany all the offerings in the Temple, even the daily
sacrifices. However, since the daily trumpeting was not unusual, they are not
mentioned in this passage. Here, only the extraordinary soundings are
mentioned. With the loss of our Beit Hamikdosh, we have substituted prayers for
the daily and festival sacrifices. So what takes the place of the trumpet blasts
for the Festivals? Rabbi Minzberg in Ben Melech notes the insertion of Yaaleh
Veyovo in each of the Festival Prayers. The key word in Yaaleh Veyovo,
repeated six times as variations of zichron and twice more as its
homonym pikdon is remembrance, echoing the recall and remembrance of our
verses about the trumpets. Therefore we also sound the trumpet/shofar on Rosh
Hashanah, the day referred to as Yom Hazikaron/The Day of Remembrance.
And we also Sound the trumpet on Rosh Chodesh, the mini Rosh Hashanah. At the
beginning of every time cycle, and especially at the jubilee year, we have to
remember that Hashem is in the world, and it is our obligation to renew our
relationship with Him. And therefore we also blow the trumpet/shofar to again
coronate Hashem as the King.
Our verses are
telling us that we sounded the shofar both in challenging times as in war, and
in joyous times, as the holidays. However,do these two times really contradict
each other? In Tehillim 101 King David declares, “Of chesed/kindness and
mishpat/justice do I sing to You, Hashem, do I sing praise.” In both
instances we are to sing to Hashem, writes Halekach Vehalebuv. Hashem
leads us in both instances. Both challenges and joy are meant to awaken us to
Hashem’s presence in the world and in our lives. We sing shirah by
making appropriate changes. And the instrument to awaken us to this song is the
chatzotzrot/ritual trumpets. In fact, continues Halekach Vehalebuv
citing the Maggid, the word chatzotzrot is itself the message. It
is a compound word, chatzi tzurah/half a form. We are reminded that we
are here on earth in a physical form, but our body is only half of who we are.
The other half that completes us as living souls comes from Hashem, and wants
to connect to that better half. Therefore, even challenges that propel us to
cry out to him are also sources of song.
From a different
perspective, Rabbi Chaim Bick explains that even what we perceive as “bad” has
good within it, that every mishpat includes chesed within it or
is a necessary precursor that will bring about future blessings. The more we
can see the hidden chesed, the more good we draw down. For example, how
much chesed do we see being generated in these trying times of Covid19?
Shabbat and Rosh
Chodesh are times of both chesed and mishpat. How? In that
symphony of the first Shabbat, writes Rabbi Friedland, the Sifsei Chaim,
the good and the perceived bad all sang together to create the tov meod/very
good of the completed creation. This was the perfect world that Hashem had
envisioned, a reflection of olam habo/future world of our existence.
Every Shabbat we get a glimpse, a small “taste” of that world. In that world,
we will recognize how all the good and the “bad” fit so perfectly together.
That’s why our Shabbat morning prayer includes everything, “All will
thank You, all will praise You, all will declare: Nothing is as
holy as Hashem...” Even the “negative” are part of this beautiful tapestry. And
that is what we declare every day, that Hashem, the God of chesed, and Elokeinu,
our God of mishpat/justice are in fact Hashem Echod/One and the
same God of chesed.
Lighting Shabbat
candles does not create anything new, writes Rabbi Pincus. Rabbi Pincus uses an
analogy. When we search for a book in daylight, we can easily find it, but in
the dark, we fumble for it without seeing it. Similarly, Shabbat is the light
that lets us see what was always there, although we could not see it in the
dark of the weekdays.
Rabbi
Bernstein notes something interesting in the Tehillim recited for Shabbat day.
He notes that there is no mention of Shabbat in the chapter. It does, however,
mention both good and evil, and declares that each has its designated place in
the world. That is what Shabbat is about, about understanding the harmony in
all of creation, an understanding reserved for the World to Come. On Shabbat,
we should re-evaluate our challenges and try to glimpse the bigger picture.
Similarly, Rosh Chodesh is a day of renewal and of seeing the connection
between chesed and truth.
While on Shabbat
we testify that Hashem created the world, we must not lose sight of the fact
that Hashem, as a daily act of chesed, recreates the world every single day. We
can find His chesed hidden in the world He created. Every month the new
moon, emerging from the darkness, reassures us and gives us hope that the light
will come, writes Rabbi Mattisyahu Solomon. But it is in the dark nights before
the new moon emerges that we strengthen our faith in the coming light, adds
Rabbi Kluger in My Sole Desire.
It is in this
context that Hashem gave women their special holiday of Rosh Chodesh, for women
personified the faith through dark times, continues Rabbi Kluger. When the men
in the desert lost faith in Moshe’s return from atop Sinai, they turned to fear
and created a substitute for Moshe, the golden calf. In contrast, the women did
not lose faith in Hashem, believing that whatever Hashem does is for the good.
They refused to contribute to forming a god/messenger substitute. Being the
bulwark of faith for husband and family and elevating them spiritually
continues to be the realm of the woman of valor.
Rabbi Chaim
Shmulevitz tells a fascinating story of the power of the moon. Once Rabbi Chaim
Shmulevitz met a holocaust survivor who had spent five years in the camps.
Rabbi Shmulevitz asked him how he managed to survive. The man recounted how the
Nazis took everything from them. They took not only every physical belonging,
they eve took away their power of prayer, for they maintained such unclean
conditions in the camps in which Jews are not permitted to pray. What kept them
going, the survivor continued, was the arrival of the new moon each month. The
murmur would go through the camp that it was time for Kiddush levanah/Blessing
the new moon. They would greet each other with a furtive handshake and recite
the blessing: “Blessed are You Hashem,… He said to the moon that it should
renew itself… for those who are destined to renew themselves like it...” In the
darkness of that Gehinom, that tiny sliver of light renewed and kept
their faith alive.
When we go through
tragedies and challenges, writes Halekach Vehalebuv, we must hold on to
that amunatche baleilot/faith in the night. We must continue to have
faith that these dark times will also pass, and to use the challenge as a wake
up call.
Rambam links the
two times together as one mitzvah of sounding the shofar because we can find
Hashem in both times. We must strive to reconcile the Hashem with Elokheinu,
for together He is Hashem Echod/One and indivisible. This is what
listening to the shofar on Rosh Hashanah is about, to coronate Hashem over the
entire macro universe and over the micro world of self, that in all times,
through all challenges, He is One, writes Rabbi Schwab. We declare it as the
ending Torah verse in the Mussaf section on shofrot, the theme permeates the
section of Malchuyot/Kingship, and we declare it seven times, ever more
forcefully, at the close of Yom Kippur with,”Hashem Hu HaElokhim/Hashem
[God of chesed] is the very same Elokhim[God of judgment]. May we always
recognize His light upon us.