From: Netvort@aol.com
Sent: Friday, September 02, 2005 8:19 AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Subject: Netvort : parshas Re'eh, 5765




                                                    On Location

                  By Rabbi Joshua (geographically known as The Hoffer) Hoffman


 This week's parsha begins with the statement, "Behold I present before you today a blessing and a curse. The blessing that you hearken to the commandments of the Lord, your God, that I command you today. And the curse, if you do not listen to the commandments of the Lord, your God, and you stray from the path that I command you today to follow the gods of others, that you did not know" (Devorim 11:26-28). Rashi explains that the blessing and curse referred to in the opening verses are the same blessing and curse that the Torah goes on to describe in the following verses, and in greater detail in parshas Ki Savo, as a process to be carried out after God brings the nation into the Holy Land. The blessing - or, as Rashi explains, based on the Targum, those who bless - will be on Mt. Gerizim, and the curse - or those who curse - will be on Mt. Eival. Rabbi Shlomo Goren, in his Toras HaMikra, asks, if the process referred to in the opening verses will not take place until after the people enter the land, as described in the later verses and in parshas Ki Savo, why does the Torah say that the blessing and curse are presented today?


 Actually, a number of commentaries explain the word  ‘ha-yom’- today - as referring, not so much to a point in time as to a certain mental attitude. Rabbi Eliyohu of Vilna, or the Vilna Gaon, for example, explains it to mean that a person should not think that his current behavior is determined by the way he acted in the past. Even if a person has not, in the past, observed God’s commandments, the Gra says, he can decide today to begin to observe them. Rabbi Moshe Sofer, known as the Chasam Sofer, explains the word ‘today’ as an evocation of the teaching of the rabbis, based on a verse in the first paragraph of the Shema, in parshas Vaeschanan, that a person should always view the commandments as if they were given today, thus giving him a sense of freshness and excitement when he fulfills them. A person needs this sense in his actions, and if he does not experience it in his observance of the mitzvos, then he may very well turn to other systems of belief, namely idolatry, to find it. That is why, in fact, the Torah here says that the curse will come if we do not hearken to the mitzvos, " and you stray from the path that I command you today, to follow the gods of others." Still, the simple reading of these verses is that the Torah is discussing something that is happening that very day, while, according to Rashi, it is actually describing a process that will happen later, after the nation enters the land. What, then, does the Torah mean when it says ‘today’ in the opening verses of parshas Re’eh?


 Rabbi Goren answers that the covenant being described here by the Torah is one by which the people become responsible for each other. This principle underlying this covenant, is described by the rabbis as 'all Jews are a surety, or responsible, one for the other.' Because of this principle, when one Jew commits a sin, his fellow Jews share, in some sense, in the responsibility for it. There are different opinions in the Talmud concerning the different kinds of sins to which this principle applies, and also concerning when the principle actually went into operation, as discussed in the Talmudic tractates Sanhedrin, 27b and 43 b, and Sotah, 37b. Rabbi Goren writes that the generally accepted approach is that this kind of responsibility began in respect to open transgressions even before the Jews entered the land, but began for hidden transgressions only after they entered. Thus, when the Torah tells us that God is placing a blessing and a curse before the people ‘today,’ it is referring to open, known transgressions, responsibility for which the people accepted upon themselves even before they entered the land. Once they entered the land and stood before the two mountains, they made a covenant accepting responsibility for hidden sins, as well. Since responsibility for hidden sins was taken on immediately, when the verses in our parsha were stated, says Rabbi Goren, it is appropriate for the torah to write, "I place before you today."


 Based on this explanation of Rabbi Goren, we can further understand why the covenant made in Eretz Yisroel itself would be made at the location of the two mountains mentioned here. Rabbi Hillel Lieberman, Hy"d,  in his commentary Ahavas HaAretz, points out that these mountains are located in the city of Shechem, and proceeds to mentions a number of events that occurred in Shechem that warrant its choice as the location of this covenant. One event that he does not mention in this regard, but which I believe is the key to this city’s choice as the location of the covenant, is the sale of Yosef  to the passing merchants, generated by the dispute  that his brothers had with him. Through this sale, Yosef descended to Egypt, and, eventually, his family followed him, paving the way for the nation’s exile. Yosef was in Shechem because his father, Ya’akov, sent him there to look after the welfare of his brothers, while his sale to Egypt bespoke a lack of responsibility for his welfare, as exhibited by his brothers. It was only when Yehudah told Ya'akov that he would act as a surety for his brother Binyomin that Ya'akov allowed the brothers to take him down to Egypt in order to get food from Pharaoh's second in command, who, unbeknownst to them, was actually Yosef (Bereishis 43:9). This assumption of responsibility was in stark contrast to the way in which the brothers had acted towards Yosef when they encountered him in Shechem. Thus, a major theme behind the conflict between Yosef and his brothers was the need for Jews to take responsibility for each other. This factor was brought out very prominently in the city of Shechem, where the process of Yosef’s descent to Egypt began.

 The concept of mutual responsibility that Jews must show for each other is based, according to the medieval Talmudic authority Rabbi Yom Tom ben Avraham, known as Ritva, in his commentary to Rosh Hashanah, on the notion that all of Israel form one collective body. In other words, there is a concept of the corporate entity of the Jewish people that makes them responsible for each other. The lack of mutual  responsibility shown by the brothers in Shechem is what caused the initial descent of the nation into Egypt. The culmination of that exile would only come when the nation accepted its full measure of mutual responsibility, at the covenant which was entered into at Mt. Gerizim and Mt. Eival, which are located in Shechem, where the process began.



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

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