Naso 5774:      Hands Off

By Rabbi Joshua (unobtrusively known as the Hoffer) Hoffman

After the encampments of the tribes are set up and the Levi’im are assigned their various duties, the people are instructed to maintain the purity of the camp by sending out people who have incurred any of three severe forms of impurity. The first laws that are given are in regard to someone who deals treacherously with God by stealing and taking an oath denying it. Although these laws were given before, some new aspects are now added. One of these aspects is the care of someone who steals from a proselyte, who has no inheritor to whom to return the stolen money. The Ramban says that these laws appear here because once the tribes were set up in their encampment, the proselytes, not included in a tribe, found their own, separate place, and so it was appropriate to mention a law that applies to them.  I believe, however, we can find a broader reason for the mention of these laws at this point that can also help explain the place of the next following law, as well.

Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt”l, in his Darash Moshe, points out that several different laws, included in the verses we are looking at, all have a common denominator.  While the Torah prohibits them in their various forms, a person may think that it is alright to rob a rich person and give his money to the poor, and that it is not so bad to rob a proselyte who has no inheritors.  In both cases, the loss will not be felt deeply. This feeling is even stronger in regard to the following law which adjures the people to give the kohein the priestly gifts coming to him.  A person may feel justified in keeping these gifts, such as Terumah, for himself, because, being gifts, the kohein does not lose when they are withheld.  The Torah therefore teaches us that in all three cases, the property involved belongs to someone else, and we cannot touch something that belongs to someone else. We must accept the fact that it was not meant for us to own this property. 

This fundamental teaching of Rav Moshe puts into further relief the importance of the order of the encampment, which these laws follow. As we explained in last week’s message, the order of the encampment is an extension of the order present at the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai, highlighting the need for all of us to carry about the role that we have been given in life to fulfill, and not to appropriate someone else’s. Through taking this approach to one’s station in life, one can attain a sense of inner peace, which perhaps may be seen as the core level of peace included in the blessing of the kohein, which ends with the blessing for peace, as set out later in this week’s parsha. 

Rav Moshe’s explanation of these verses gives added meaning to a story about him that we have mentioned in the past.  When the faculty of his yeshiva proposed that they change the choice of learning for the beginning Talmud class, from the second chapter of Bava Metziah to the first chapter of Berachos, Rav Moshe replied that they would retain the traditional order of study.  He then later explained to his son, Rav Reuven, that, in beginner’s Gemara, not that many pages are covered but the material is drilled over and over again into the child’s mind, so that he attains the skills needed to study further.  Being that the second chapter of Bava Metziah deals with the laws of finding lost objects, the child will have drummed into his head, over and over again, the principle that he cannot touch something that is not his.  Based on Rav Moshe’s explanation of our verses, and their place in the parsha, as we have noted, we can further appreciate how important this message is.