From: "netvort@aol.com" <netvort@aol.com>
<br>To: "joshhoff@aol.com" <joshhoff@aol.com>
<br>Sent: Friday, August 5, 2016, 01:36:23 AM EDT
<br>Subject: What’s Your Focus? Netvort, Matos-Masei 5776





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What’s Your Focus?

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By Rabbi Joshua (petitioningly known as The Hoffer) Hoffman

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  The tribes of Reuven and Gad approach Moshe, telling him that the land of Gilad, on the eastern side of the Jordan, has abundant grazing land that will serve their abundant cattle well. They therefore ask that they be allowed to settle there rather than cross the river and settle with the rest of the nation in Eretz Yisroel proper. Moshe at first, asks, “Will your brothers go to war while you settle here,” but then in the end, tells them that if they join in battle for Eretz Yisroel proper, they can afterwards return to the land on the east of the Yarden and settle there. Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, zt”l, once asked, why Moshe didn’t insist that they settle with the rest of the nation, but, rather, gave what seems a rather tepid, compromising response, to this request of the two tribes to separate themselves from the rest of their brethren?
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  Rav Lichtenstein answered that while there is a dispute among halachic authorities about the status of the land “across the Yarden,” where the two tribes wanted to settle, in terms of its sanctity, the main part of Eretz Yisroel, which has full sanctity, is on the western side, and that land must be captured first. Moshe was telling the two tribes that while their economic needs could be accommodated, they had to be aware that full sanctity of Eretz Yisroel would be in the land captured on the western side, and they must always be aware of that and place their focus on that land and their brethren there.
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  By extrapolation, Rav Lichtenstein said, this response of Moshe carries a general message for one' s approach to life, in general, and, in the context of the yeshiva students he was addressing, to the life choice the students would make. In choosing what field of work to enter, some people choose to serve as an educator in some other kind of service to the religious community. Others choose to make their living in a purely secular way. Each person makes this decision in accord with his strengths and inclinations. However, whatever choice one makes, he must always understand that his main focus in life is his spiritual side, his growth in that area and his connection with the wider community. The materialistic side of his life, while important, must not become the main part of his life, just as Moshe told the tribes of Reuven and Gad.
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  We may perhaps add to Rav Lichtenstein's remarks an illustration of what Moshe was warning against from the experience of the Jewish people in Egypt. The midrash tells us that one of the plagues brought on the Egyptians, the locust, came to destroy their crops because they had forced the slaves to plant them. While this is usually explained as an example of punishment that is measure for measure, Rabbi Shubert Spero suggested another idea. He said that the slaves began developing a sense of pride in their work by which caused them to want to stay in Egypt. This is reflected in the complaint against the manna, as recorded in parshas Beha’aloscha, when the complainers said that they remember the fish they ate in Egypt, and the melons, etc. (Bamidbar 11:5). They used only one word in mentioning the fish, but several words in describing the vegetables. Psychologically, apparently they felt an attachment to those foods they had grown themselves. Their focus has become the material side of their lives, rather than the redemption and becoming God’s nation. The plague that came to destroy the crops they grew was not only a punishment for the Egyptians, but also a means of removing any reason for the Hebrews to want to stay in Egypt. Many of the people lost their proper focus in life, and this was the kind of issue that Moshe was addressing in his response to the tribes of Reuven and Gad.