ASPIRING
ACCEPTANCE: SHAVUOT I
Shira
Smiles shiur –
May 25, 2014/Iyar 25, 5774
Summary
by Channie Koplowitz Stein
In Sichot Beavodat Hashem, Rabbi Eliezer Meizlish quotes
the idea
that every year before daybreak of Shavuot Hashem asks our souls, “Who
wants to accept
the Torah?”
At
that moment, the souls of Bnei Yisroel respond again, “Naaseh
venishma –
we will do and we
will listen.”
Every year we reaccept the Torah as we did at Sinai even if we are not
cognizant of our soul’s
dialogue with its Maker, and every year we are credited anew with that
acceptance.
Nevertheless, how can we explain the illogic of agreeing to do before
we hear
the particulars? Rabbi Dovid Hofstedter in Drash Dovid explains
that naaseh
is a commitment to doing the mitzvoth. Once I actually “taste”
the mitzvah, understanding will follow. Further, if I perform the
mitzvah with
some level of understanding, even greater understanding will follow the
performance itself.
Let us return to that first acceptance at Sinai. The Medrash tells us
that at
Sinai each individual of Bnei Yisroel heard Hashem’s
voice according to his own ability
to hear it. Yet, the Medrash continues, their souls left them after
each
utterance and Hashem then returned their souls to them. If Hashem spoke
to each
according to his capability to understand, why would their souls leave
them?
Rabbi Zev Leff in Shaarei Binah explains that while Hashem’s
voice reached
each individual according to his capability, He was speaking to the
potential
for holiness inherent in the individual. However, when the person saw
the chasm
between his potential and where he actually was, the grief and shock
caused his
soul to leave his body. Nishma, then, is the declaration of
willingness
to dedicate ourselves to spiritual growth and to narrow the gap between
our
potential and our actuality. Nishma is active listening, for we
are all baalei
teshuvah hoping to return fully to our spiritual source.
This growth is the challenge of our lives. As Rabbi Zev Reichman writes
in Path
to the Tree of Life citing a letter written by Rav Hutner, when
King
Solomon writes that the righteous fall seven times and rise, it does
not mean
that the righteous just keep getting up; what the verse means is that
falling
and failing is the means through which the righteous grow. No one is
born
righteous. We each must struggle with our yetzer horo to
overcome it and
grow.
If nishma is about personal growth, what is naaseh about?
Naaseh is about unconditional acceptance of Hashem’s
commands. It is
about accepting His command without personal rationalization. As Rabbi
Aryeh
Leib Hacohen Shapiro writes in Chazon Lamoed, Adam sinned not
because he
refused to obey God’s
command, but rather because he inserted his own intellectual process
into the
command. Reasoning that by falling and then rising up to do Hashem’s
will he would
create a greater sanctification of God’s
Name than if he just blindly obeyed the command, he disobeyed God’s
command. His sin
was “for
the
sake of Heaven”,
yet it brought death into the world, for God’s
wisdom must always supersede our own.
All the trees in Eden save one, the etrog/citron tree, also
fell into
this trap, allowing both its bark and its fruit to taste the same.
Therefore the etrog tree has fruit that can live year
round on the
tree, remaining there all winter before the first leaves of spring. The
etrog
is therefore the paradigm for accepting God’s
command unquestioningly, for accepting God’s
command without personal calculation. Therefore, When Bnei Yisroel said
naaseh
before nishma, they regained the status of Adam before the sin.
In With Hearts Full of Faith Matisyahu Salomon adds a beautiful
insight
into our understanding of this seemingly illogical order of acceptance.
He
writes that Bnei Yisroel knew that if they asked what laws the Torah
contained,
they would undoubtedly find the challenges beyond them. However, they
also
understood that receiving the Torah would transform them, and would
infuse them
with a strength and power heretofore unknown to them to make the
impossible not
only possible but a way of life.
Rabbi Salomon continues with profound reasoning. Surely if Hashem gave
humankind the ability to experience pleasure, He would not impose laws
to
deprive us of pleasure. But there are two levels of pleasure, the
pleasures of
the body and the pleasures of the spirit. Physical pleasures are of a
lower
level and fleeting, while pleasures that envelop our spirit, whether
through
intellect, the arts, honor, dignity, or embracing God’s
word stay with us and elevate us far
beyond the moment. By accepting the Torah, we rose to a higher level
where we
gladly gave up some physical pursuits for the greater joys of living as
sons
and daughter of the King. In this context, Torah limitations are not
onerous,
but a means of reaching and maintaining this elevated status and
relationship
with the King.
In reality, writes Rabbi Uri Weissblum in Heorat Derech, naaseh
does not mean we will accomplish, for results are in the purview of
Hakodosh
Boruch Hu. Rather, naaseh means that we will do whatever is in
our power
to fight the yetzer horo and to focus on performing the
mitzvoth. If, in
spite of all our efforts, we still fail, it is because Hashem so willed
it,
and, according to the Gemarrah, we are nevertheless credited
with having
performed the mitzvah. (Perhaps an appropriate example would be that
someone
needs to travel for a mitzvah. He starts out, but due to travel or
weather
conditions will be unable to perform this mitzvah in its allotted time.
Nevertheless, he phones someone who is closer to act in his stead. In
such an
instance, he is considered an onus, someone forced beyond his
control,
and he also receives the merit of having performed the mitzvah.)
Rabbi Weissblum offers an interesting interpretation to the verse, “Poteach
et
yodecha umasbia lechol chai ratzon - You open Your hand and
satisfy the
desire of every living thing.”
Even in ruchniyut, spiritual matters, we ask for Hashem’s
help, for Hashem
lends His hand to all who have the desire to do His will. Once we
demonstrate
our desire, Hashem will help us along the path we choose.
In line with this idea, Rabbi Shmuel Brazil offers us an anagram for ratzon,
desire. By rearranging these letters, we arrive at tzinor,
conduit or pipeline. Our work is truly very narrow. It is to have the
desire to
do Hashem’s
will, and to exert our energy in its pursuit. This desire then creates
the
conduit for Hashem to help us in its fulfillment.
By saying naaseh before nishma we demonstrated this
desire, and
our entire beings understood without being told what Hashem’s
will was, just as
Avraham Avinu was able to fulfill the entire Torah before it was given.
Had we
not sinned with the golden calf, our stand at Mount Sinai would have
been dayenu,
enough to fulfill the Torah, writes the Slonimer Rebbe in Netivot
Shalom.
What naaseh means now is that we must work on our middot,
on our
character so that we purify ourselves and remove the blockages that
prevent us
from accepting intuitively God’s
will as our own. This is the purpose of sephirat haomer, not
just
counting the days of the omer sacrifice brought daily between
Pesach and
Shavuot, but of using the days of the omer to purify ourselves
so that
we shine and sparkle like the sapphire stone which is the material of
God’s
symbolic throne.
Rabbi Pliskin cites Rabbi Yechezkail Levenstein, in writing that the
Torah
cannot be observed without incorporating the very fabric of our
character, our middot.
For example, arrogance is diametrically opposed to awe of God, and
egocentricity
prevents us from feeling empathy for another, thus preventing us from
fulfilling so many of the social mitzvoth. If I work on myself and
humble
myself, I create a new definition of self, dedicated to a higher
purpose. This
is the work we must do.
What this means on a very basic level, writes the Chernobler Rav, cited
by
Rabbi Meislish in Sichot Baavodat Hashem is that I do His will
even when
there is no warm, fuzzy feeling attached to what I’ve
done, even when it may be
unpleasant for me, for His will supersedes my will.
It is undoubtedly difficult to reach this level in one leap. Rabbi
Yerucham
Levovitz whose teachings are preserved in Daas Chochma Umussar
cites the
tradition that Bnei Yisroel accepted the Torah a second time, at Purim.
But
while the acceptance at Sinai was out of fear, the acceptance at Purim
was from
love. Yet the Megillah records only one mitzvah that Bnei
Yisroel took
upon themselves, reading the Megillah every year. However, from
performing this mitzvah wholeheartedly and with love, Bnei Yisroel
sought a
closer connection to Hakodosh Boruch Hu by performing all the other
mitzvoth as
well. Rabbi Levovitz points to this phenomenon and tells us that we too
should
begin by performing a single mitzvah with love and dedication, and our
connection to the Ribbono shel olam will grow until we seek to do all
the
mitzvoth to the best of our ability.
This is our task on Shavuot, writes Rabbi Freeman in Shaarei
Derech. We
must take on a kabbalah of doing one Mitzvah with ratzon, and
that will
be a demonstration that all the Mitzvoth are bratzon. We
must be
like a fish which is totally surrounded by water still but rises to the
surface
to catch new raindrops, so must we always yearn for new words of Torah
and new
ways to connect to Hashem. This is the rededication of naaseh
venishma
every Shavuot that we must strive to work on the rest of the year.