In our parasha,
Moses continues to encourage the nation to trust in God to ensure the
successful conquest and settlement of the land. In order to help the nation
build trust in God and see God as the source of their success and power, Moses
describes God's care and providence. God protected them from the hardships of
the desert,' HE fed you the manna, your garment did not
wear out upon you and your feet did not swell' – ויאכילך את המן, שמלתך לא בלתה ורגלך לא בצקה . Moses reminds them that the goodness comes with
challenges and hardships in order to prepare them for life in the land of
Israel. In order to survive in Israel, one needs a high level of faith and
trust in God and life in the desert למען ענתך לנסותך, ויענך וירעבך ויאכילך את המן, כאשר ייסר איש את בנו - living a life dependent on miracles, not
being able to store food for the next day and or do anything that will give
life some certainty and predictability, prepared them for life in Israel. They
should know that this path was for their benefit. Moses then warns about the
dangers that prosperity brings – arrogance, self- aggrandizement and self-
glorification. This leads to forgetting God and saying ' it is my strength and
the might of my hand that made me all this wealth'. Ultimately this leads to idolatry,
going after the gods of others.
כֹּחִי וְעֹצֶם יָדִי, עָשָׂה לִי אֶת-הַחַיִל הַזֶּה. וְהָיָה,
אִם-שָׁכֹחַ תִּשְׁכַּח אֶת-יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, וְהָלַכְתָּ אַחֲרֵי אֱלֹהִים
אֲחֵרִים
The first
question is that on entry into the land of Israel, the children of Israel are
commanded to destroy all manifestations and vestiges of idolatry as it would be
unbefitting that idolatry should exist in God's palace, the land of Israel. So
why is Moses so concerned about idolatry, if the land has been cleaned out of
any temptations and enticement? The 2nd question – prosperity allows
people to be independent rather than dependent on God and so people attribute
their success to their own efforts and beings, rather than God's support, so why
would people then subjugate themselves and submit to idols. ? R' Isaac Sher
gives 2 answers. At a time when there existed a passion for idolatry, people
had the power to use these negative forces of idolatry to improve their
materialistic situations. The second answer - when a man attributes all his
success to his own doing, he is denying God's role and he begins to worship
himself. A person who is rude and coarse, gets angry – thinks he is a god and
people have to listen to him. A person who is arrogant and self-glorifies
himself is involved in idolatry = uvoda zara. An atheist or non-believer, even
though he does not believe in anything but himself is also an idolater. When one
puts his trust in others and flatters people with power - החונף he is considered worse
than an idolater. A person who is an idolater's slave is considered as if he serves
idolatry. The verse in Judges 10: 6 gives a list of gods of the surrounding
nations that the children of Israel worshipped and served. ויעבדו את הבעלים ואת העשתרות ואת אלהי ארם ואת
אלהי צידון ואת אלהי מואב ואת אלהי בני עמון ואת אלהי
פלשתיםThe Midrash connects this
idolatry to the children of Israel's laziness and lack of effort in prayer. R'
Isaac Sher explains that when people do
not tire from activities that serve their interests but are tired when it comes
to prayer, it means that the nation places
more value and trust in political agreements and alliances with the surrounding
nations than prayer, and that people have more faith in their efforts than in prayer.
When this happens – it is as if the nation serves the gods of these nations and
people who cheapen prayer do the same.
Although there
is a commandment to clear out and destroy idols and manifestations of idolatry,
the thrust of Moses' speech is positive, focusing on building trust and
relationship with God. If you have a problem with idolatry, the underlying
problem is your relationship with God. The problem is mainly within man and not
outside of him, so we focus on building personalities rather than engineering
the environment so there is not temptation or enticement.
A similar problem - a
man is overcome with lustful thoughts when he is certain environments. The
Talmid= student of R' Chaim Volozhin, the Keter Rosh wrote down the teachings
of his mentor. He writes about a man, (most likely unmarried) who had a problem
with impure thoughts when he sees women. In order to deal with his problem and
fight his lustful thoughts he decides to make a vow not to look at women. If he
breaks his vow and looks at a woman, his desire will burn inside him like a
fire. The situation is much worse, since he fought reality and energized the
negative action he was fighting. Instead, he should accept the reality and pray
for God's assistance and mercy in dealing with the challenges as he
ventures into the market place. He is
not told to avoid the market place. R' Moshe Feinstein said– if a person is
challenged by public transport he should know he has a problem and work on
himself.
כתר ראש ארחות חיים קצה ] הסתכלות עריות ושיחתן אמר זה הכלל כל
מה שינדור א״ע ויפרוש מראיה אח״כ אם יראה ויביט יבער בו היצר כאש, אלא
כשדעתו לילך בשוק יתפלל ויבקש רחמים לבל יכשל ח׳יו בשום נדנוד חטא והרהור עבירה
ר׳ל;
כתר ראש - הנהגותיו שנכתבו בידי תלמידו של ר, חיים מולוזהין רבי אשר הכהן משערשוב.
When we are dealing with children we need
to give them structure and make the environment safe and protect them from e.g.
bad diet – sugar and the media. The
solution for adults – engineering the environment beyond the demands of Halacha
– Jewish Law so that the environment will be free of any temptation or challenges
has many downsides. The focus is no longer on positive education and building righteous people who can overcome challenges,
but on creating a sterile environment and fighting the external threats to a
person's spirituality. There is another problem – when you fight ' evil', you
actually support and strengthen ' evil' as Carl Jung said - 'what you resist persists'.
The answer is to accept reality and not to fight reality and
then focus on positive steps and education which will help you change reality. ' 'What you resist , persists' - means
that if a person has a character flaw – lustful thoughts , or he has an anger problem
or he has food or drink problems, the more the person fights the reality, the
bigger the problem becomes. He has ' energized the problem and given it center
stage in his life. Instead of going away, it fights back and persists. If a man has bad thoughts, he can use the
principles of Mindfulness – acknowledge his thoughts, put them aside and then
focus on his breathing and then something else. If he tries to resist these thoughts,
they fight back and persist. He should be building his personality
so his mind is occupied with ideas or being mindful of what he is doing so he
is not distracted. He should try to see the image of God – צלם אלוקים in each person and relate to their contribution to society
instead of focusing on their gender. If he breaks his diet , resists and fights back by being over-critical of himself, full of shame , he
will ultimately give up , and say ' what
the hell and then he will go on the binge – eating and drinking without any
restraints. So a person with a drink or diet
problem , needs a plan that will focus on what he can eat , replacement foods ,
a new life style instead of focusing of what he should not eat. When he does
fail and breaks his diet, he should have some self- compassion instead of being
over- critical and giving energy to breaking his diet and focus on getting back
on track. Campaigns against 'talking in
shul ' will be more successful if they focus on positive education and not '
energizing' talking in shul. Campaigns about the dangers of internet and cell phones
tend to cause people to shift blame from people and their relationships or
exploring underlying problems and just blame it all on the internet. People
forget that the most potent and dangerous communication tool is our tongues and
not the cell phone or the internet. Here too, we need to focus on the positive,
what we can talk about and connect with people in a positive way. Even if a
person makes a conservative and restricted choice concerning the media, he has
to remember the downside of resisting and energizing the dangers - the negative
side and focus on positive education. In politics, candidates in election who
focus on the negative of their opponents rather than saying something positive
about themselves, strengthen their opponents. The campaign to remain in the
European Community failed because it focused on negative consequences of
leaving rather than the positive reasons for staying in the community. Instead
of giving a list of what pupils cannot
do in the holidays, a teacher should focus on what they could do.
There is tendency in education to try and
control the environment and people's choices rather focus on positive education
and build people. When the focus is on fighting the negative, we need to
understand the downside – 'what we resist persists.'
.
No comments:
Post a Comment