From: Netvort@aol.com
Sent: Friday, September 10, 2004 2:15 AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Subject: Netvort : parshas Nitzovim - Vayeilech, 5764

   


                                       We Interrupt this Program…

              By Rabbi Joshua (interruptedly known as The Hoffer) Hoffman


In parshas Vayeilech, Moshe, on the last day of his life, bids farewell to his nation. He tells them that God said to him, "You shall not cross this Yardein (Jordan)" (Devorim 31:2). God, he continues, will cross (the Yardein) before them and destroy the nations before them, and Yehoshua will lead them. Moshe then tells the people that Yehoshua will be their new leader, and tells Yehoshua to be strong and courageous in leading the people into the land. However, before God actually appears to Moshe and tells him to appoint Yehoshua in front of the people, the Torah tells us that Moshe finished writing a sefer Torah and gave it to the kohanim. He then told them that after the end of the seventh, or shemittah, year, they should gather all of the people in the Temple courtyard during Sukkos in order to hear certain sections of the Torah being read to them. This constitutes the mitzvoh of Hakheil. According to the halacha, it is the king who reads the Torah to the people. After Moshe presents the details of this mitzvoh to the nation, God appears to him and tells him to appoint Yehoshua as his successor. Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin, in his Oznayim LeTorah, asks why Moshe interrupted his announcement to the people that Yehoshua would be his successor as their leader, with the writing of the Torah and the presentation of the mitzvoh of Hakheil, before actually appointing Yehoshua? I believe that this interruption was meaningful on three different levels - in terms of Moshe himself, in terms of Yehoshua, and in terms of the people, in general.

Moshe, the first leader of the Jewish nation, was distinguished by his status of the one who gave the Torah to Yisroel, bringing them God's message as taught to him at Mt. Sinai. This was really the defining factor of Moshe's role, and for this reason he is known as Moshe Rabbeinu, or Moshe our teacher. Perhaps, then, because the teaching and perpetuation of Torah was the central concern of his life, he wanted to make sure that it would continue after his death. Rav Ya'akov Moshe Charlop, in his Mei Marom to parshas Nitzovim, writes that this is what motivated Moshe to make a separate covenant, or bris, with the people, besides the one recorded in parshas Ki Savo. Most commentators write that the bris in parshas Nitzovim added the element of 'areivus,' of the collective responsibility of the Jewish people for sins committed in public, as stated there, "The hidden things are for the Lord, our God, but the revealed things are for us and for our children, to perform all the words of the Torah" (Devorim 30:28). This verse, in fact, serves as the source for the halacha of 'areivus,' according to the Talmud in Sanhedrin. However, writes Rav Charlop, since a bris implies Torah, as we find in a verse in Yirmiyahu, "Were it not for my covenant day and night…" (Yirmiyahu 33:25), Torah was a central element of the covenant. In a similar way, then, we can suggest that as Moshe was about to hand the reigns of leadership over to his successor, he wanted to make sure that the teaching of Torah, which was the central concern of his career, would continue. Therefore, he wrote a sefer Torah and gave it to the kohanim, who would serve as the teachers, and presented the mitzvoh of Hakheil, in which Yehoshua himself, in his role as king, would read the Torah to the people.


Rabbi Sorotzkin himself explains the interruption in a similar way, but in terms of Yehoshua, rather than Moshe. He writes that he did not want Yehoshua, or the judges and the kings who would follow him, to think that the role of a Jewish leader is only to conquer the land and to protect the people. Rather, he also must see to it that the people learn Torah and observe the mitzvos. Since the king himself is not able to involve himself in the constant teaching of the Torah, the kohanim must teach the people. However, once every seven years, the king himself, at Hakheil, must read the Torah to them. This public reading of the Torah by the king will inspire the people to give honor to the Torah, and remind them of their need to commit themselves to learn Torah from the kohanim. Perhaps we can add to this comment of Rabbi Sorotzkin that this reminder to Yehoshua of the need to study Torah was an indication to him that he needed to conduct his battles to conquer the land according to the mitzvos of the Torah. We have noted in the past that this may have been the reason that, as explained in the Talmud, an angel came to Yehoshua the night before the first battle that he led in Eretz Yisroel and criticized him for not being engaged in studying Torah. The idea here was that before embarking on that battle, he needed to study the relevant halochos that guide the conduct of battle.

On another level, the interruption of Yehoshua's appointment with the writing of a sefer Torah, a charge to the kohanim to teach it, and to the king to read it on Hakheil, was a message to the nation, as well. The Rambam, in his Sefer HaMitzvos (Book of Divine Commandments) notes that the role of the king is to unite the people, and Rav Saadia Gaon, in his Emunos Vede'os (Book of Belief and Opinions) writes that our nation is a nation only through the Torah. While the kohanim are the ones who teach the people during the rest of the seven-year shemittah cycle, the king has a special role at Hakheil. Rav Yitzchok Hutner, among others, has explained, based on the formulation of the Rambam in his Laws of Chagigah, that Hakheil was actually a re-enactment of the scene at Mt. Sinai when the Torah was given to the nation. Just as the entire nation - men, women and children - gathered at that time to receive the Torah, so, too, after the end of shemittah, the entire nation gathered around the Temple to hear portions of the Torah being read by the king. It is significant that Hakheil was done after shemittah, rather than in its beginning, as noted by Rabbi Shmuel Bornstein in his commentary Shem MiShmuel. Perhaps the idea is that after the leveling effect of the shemittah year, when the fields are left fallow and the produce is ownerless, the people need to be reminded that what really unites them is the Torah (see Netvort to parshas Vayeilech, 5762, for a different explanation of why Hakheil is done after shemittah rather than in the beginning of it). The king, in his role as the unifier of the people, is therefore the one who reads the Torah to them. Yehoshua, the rabbis tell us, actually had the status of a king. Therefore, in the midst of Moshe's announcement of Yehoshua's future role, before the actual appointment, he interrupted the procedures by writing a sefer Torah and presenting the mitzvoh of Hakheil, in order to bring into relief the role that the king plays within the nation, of unifying them as a people through the Torah.


Shanah Tovah to all from the Netvort staff !


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Please address all correspondence to the author (Rabbi Hoffman) with the following address - JoshHoff @ AOL.com.

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