Vaeschanan 5774:      For Your Own Good

By Rabbi Joshua (beneficially known as The Hoffer) Hoffman

We noted in last week’s message that the Shabbos before Tisha B’Av is known as Shabbos Chazon, after the first word of the haftarah read that week, and that that weekly Torah reading itself has been shown to have relevance to Tisha B’Av as well. The Shabbos after Tisha B’Av is known as Shabbos Nachamu, or “the Shabbos of comfort,” after the opening words of the haftarah, and here, too, elements relevant to this theme can be found in the day's Torah reading.  It is interesting to note that Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, zt”l, pointed out that the Rambam, in his order of prayers and Torah readings at the end of his Sefer Ahavah, mentions that Ezra enacted that Parshas Vaeschanan, be read on the Shabbos after Tisha B’Av, but does not say that he enacted that Parshas Devarim be read on the Shabbos before Tisha B’Av. The Rav zt”l explained that this is because a guiding factor in our observance of Tisha B’Av is that of nechama, of comfort. Without it, we would not be allowed to engage in the intense form of mourning that we practice then, because, it could lead to discouragement and a lack of will to go on, as reflected in the Talmud (Bava Basra 60b) regarding a group of people who wished to engage in extreme mourning practices all year round.  Rabbi Yehoshua, as recorded there, told them that it was not appropriate to decree such practices as the community could not sustain them. We do engage in heightened mourning practices during the period of the three weeks, but we can only do so by adding the element of nechama, beginning the afternoon of Tisha B’Av, and followed through on Shabbos Nachamu, as reflected in the Torah reading of that day.

Actually, we can find an element of nechama, in the very part of Parshas Vaeschanan that we read on Tisha B’Av morning, even though, on its face, that section of the parsha does not seen to carry any message of comfort. The Torah tells us (Devarim, 4:24-25): “You will beget children and grandchildren and you will have been long in the land (Venoshantem ba’aretz) and you will make a carved image… and you will do evil in the eyes of God, and you will surely perish from the land.”  Rashi points out that the gematria, the numerical equivalent, of the word “venoshantem”, literally and you will grow old, is eight hundred fifty two, which amounts to the number of years after entering the land that the decree of “you will surely perish” would be fulfilled.  However, they were exiled after eight-hundred fifty years – two years earlier – and thus avoided the harshness of the decree. In this way, what seemed, at first blush, to be a tragedy for the people turned out to be for their benefit, and constitutes a message of comfort. 

This concept that an act of God that seems to be something bad is actually good is at the core of the message that we should derive from Tisha B’Av. As Rav Eliyahu Brudny pointed out in a recent pre-Tisha B’Av talk at Yeshiva Torah VoDa’as, God brings affliction upon the people out of love. The severe enslavement in Egypt was a means of shortening the amount of years the nation would have to stay there and be exposed to an environment of immorality. However, upon hearing the report of the spies and the difficulties that would be involved in conquering Eretz Yisroel, they said that even the exodus from Egypt was done out of God’s hatred for them.  In truth, both came from God’s love, and perhaps this is why Tisha B’Av, the night on which the spies report was issued, always occurs on the same day of the week as does the first night of Pesach.  The message of both is that Gods’ actions, even when they seem to be bad, are actually good, and a manifestation of His love for His people.

There is another similar message of comfort in Parshas Vaeschanan regarding Moshe’s death before the people entered Eretz Yisroel.  Moshe tells the people that after his many entreaties to God to allow him to enter the land, “But He had become angry with me because of you and did not listen to me” (Devarim 3:25).  Many commentators ask, how could Moshe say that God became angry with him because of the people? Wasn’t he denied entry into Eretz Yisroel because of his own sin in regard to the “waters of strife?” The Meshech Chochmah explains that the word “lema’anchem,” because of you, means “for your good.”  Had Moshe entered Eretz Yisroel with the people, they may have very likely have made him into a deity, thus changing the character of the nation and expediting their punishment.  In this sense, then, the death of Moshe outside of Eretz Yisroel, which ostensibly seemed to be something bad, turned out to be good for the people. This recurring theme is the message of comfort that we need to take with us on the heels of Tisha B’Av.