Shalom Friends;
Our Doubleheader Parshat HaShevua, Matos-Masei is being sponsored by Yosef Moshe and Chana Rosenberg of Ramat Beit Shemesh dedicated in honor of Yosef Moshe’s Bar Mitzvah Parshiyot Matot/Masei and for the health and well-being of their children and family . To the Rosenberg family, many thanks for your sponsorship and your continued kindnesses.
You can celebrate a Simcha — a birth, a Bar/Bat Mitzvah, a Chassuna or other Simcha event in your life, or commemorate a Yahrtzeit of a loved one, or for whatever other reason by sponsoring a Parshat HaShevua.
Please forward to your relatives and friends and encourage them to sponsor a Parshat HaShevua. And please be in contact with me with any questions, or for further details.
Best Regards,
Moshe Burt
olehchadash@yahoo.com
skype: mark.burt3
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A few weeks ago, this author composed a vort on Parshat Korach while in the midst of a medical crisis which required hospitalization for a laser procedure and was discharged a day and a half later.
An event happened during the hospitalization, close to the time for discharge, which this author will attempt to relate to our doubleheader Parshat Matos – Masei.
A male nurse came and handed a container to this author in the morning following the laser procedure, and related how it was necessary to fill the container to a level of 400 and that the contents be bloodless.
This author’s heart sank. Just hours after a procedure for blasting bladder and kidney stones, blood is inevitable.
As an aside, part of the procedure was the placement of a bypass stent with a tiny string that extends externally. And even as this author is now home, blood and discomfort continue, at least until a few days from now when hospital personnel will remove the stent.
So, attempting to follow the nurse’s instructions, this author ran between filling cups of water for drinking and running back and forth to restrooms attempting to expel and in bloodless fashion without success.
After a couple of hours, the female head nurse approaches and demands, “Why are you not filling up the container to level 400?” [paraphrasing the head nurse] This author explained the instructions that the other nurse gave and the understanding he had of the instruction — to use the container only once able to expel fluidly with no blood.
The head nurse explained that what was meant was to keep expelling into the container cumulatively until reaching at least a level of 400. As for the blood, hospital personnel examine the color of the blood in determining if the patient will be discharged.
And so, this author now understood and began to fill the container, first to a level of 50. This author’s friend, Rabbi Yechiel Nussbaum who took the last shift and would later drive this author home, suggested that we both recite some Tehillim.
We recited together four kepitlach of Tehillim. Upon completing the four kepitlach of Tehillim, this author headed to the restroom and reached a level of 150. The head nurse passed by and saw the level in the container and said to this author, [again paraphrasing the head nurse] “You’re discharged. I saw all of the water you drank and how many times you went to the restroom. You have more than satisfied the requirement of the 400 level. As for the blood, the color of it was satisfactory.”
At that point, this author was handed his discharge papers and Rabbi Nussbaum drove him home. The Heavenly Court apparently ruled in my favor. The head nurse could have passed, said nothing and held this author to a 400 level. Would that that was the case, it could have meant hours more, or even another day in the hospital. Amazing what a bit of Tehillim can do!
In relating the above personal story to our Parshat Matos-Masei, we cite Sefer Bamidbar, Perek 30, posuk 3 as rendered to English in the Artscroll Stone Edition Chumash:
“If a man takes a vow to Hashem or swears an oath…, he shall not desecrate his word; according to whatever comes from his mouth shall he do.”
This author came across this piece on the power of words from Sefer Shem Mishmuel (“Selections on the Weekly Parashah and Festivals” Rendered to English by Rabbi Zvi Belovski, pages 364-365):
“Yisrael was bound by the command not to profane their words; the nations of the world were not.” (Shem Mishmuel citing Yalkut Shimoni)
…If a Jew guards his mouth, correctly reserving it only for holy purposes, then it itself becomes holy. The mouth becomes like a sanctified vessel used in the Beit HaMikdash — when flour or oil come into contact with it, it too, assumes a status of holiness. When a developed, controlled person speaks, his words have the power to sanctify the subject of that speech. Indeed this very idea is encapsulated by Rashi who comments:
“He shall not profane his word — …he should not make his words mundane.” (Shem Mishmuel citing Rashi on Sefer Bamidbar, Perek 30, posuk 3)
We have the ability to sanctify the world with our speech. The Torah here enjoins us not to misuse this power by speaking nonsense or uttering vows that we will later profane.
It seems to this author that both Rabbi Yechiel’s suggestion of reciting those four kepitlach of Tehillim and the head nurse’s kindness and spoken words would be paradigms of the power of sanctity of speech.
So too, we learn in Parshat Masei about the daughters of Tzelaphchad who spoke with sanctity pleading their case for inheritance of their family’s land in Eretz Yisrael.
Paradigm for the strength and passion with which we need to be connected to OUR Eretz Yisrael are the B’not Tzelaphchad, for Tzelaphchad bore no sons to inherit his portion of Eretz Yisrael.
Excerpts from Rabbi Shmuel Goldin’s Parsha Summaries for Parshat Pinchas and Parshat Masei regarding the B’not Tzelaphchad (“Unlocking the Torah Text,” Sefer Bamidbar, pages 253 and 276):
The four daughters of Tzelaphchad approach Moshe protesting the fact that, because their father “died for his own sin in the wilderness” without leaving sons, their family would not receive its rightful land portion. When Moshe seeks Divine counsel, Hashem informs him that the daughters of Tzelaphchad are justified in their claims. In the absence of sons, daughters will inherit their family’s land. (ibid, Parshat Pinchas, page 253)
The Sefer Bamidbar closes as Hashem, responding to the concern of the elders of Shevet Menashe (the tribe to which the daughters of Tzelaphchad belong), mandates that a woman who inherits land from her father must marry within her tribe. (Rabbi Goldin cites Talmud Bavli Bava Batra 120a which explains that this limitation only applies to the generation that entered Eretz Yisrael) This edict balances a daughter’s right of inheritance with the rights of a tribe to retain it’s land allotment. (ibid, Parshat Masei, page 276)
The Artscroll Stone Chumash renders to English, Perek 36, posuk 6 and notes:
“This is the word that Hashem has commanded regarding the daughters of Tzelaphchad, saying: Let them be wives to whoever is good in their eyes, but only to the family of their father shall they become wives.”
Since the daughters of Tzelaphchad would receive the portion of the land destined for their late father, and their heirs would be their future husbands or sons, the province of Menashe would be diminished if any of the five daughters were to marry outside of the tribe. This was not a theoretical problem, because these women were righteous and wise (Artscroll Stone Chumash citing Bava Batra 120a), so it was natural that they were sought as mates by men from all the tribes. (Artscroll Stone Chumash citing Tzror HaMor) But if they were to marry outside of their tribe, the Divinely inspired apportionment of land would be corrupted, because part of the province of Menashe would pass to another tribe. (The Artscroll Stone Chumash citing Sforno)
Notes on Rashi, in “The Sapirstein Edition: Torah with Rashi’s Commentary,” (Sefer Bamidbar, pages 432-433):
The verse seems to say that the Jubilee year will cause the inheritance of the daughters of Tzelaphchad to be transferred to the tribes of their husbands. But we do not find any such transfer among the laws of the Jubilee year. Rather, the verse means that the Jubilee year will not stop the land from remaining in the hands of the tribes of their husbands, to whom it has already been transferred by virtue of the sons; it will not cause the land to revert to the daughters of Tzelaphchad and their tribe as it would had they sold it. (citing Be’er Mayim Chaim; Be’er Yitzchak)
[Rashi on Sefer Bamidbar, Perek 36, posuk 8; “Every daughter from among the tribes of Israel shall inherit an inheritance…”] The verse would have been making a general statement about all daughters. Rashi explains… It is understood “every daughter who inherits,” refers only to daughters whose fathers had no sons.
Have the generations of the seventy-five years since modern-day Israeli statehood not heard this scream, the pleas of the daughters of Tzelaphchad who loved Eretz Yisrael — sight unseen? Have they not picked up on the lesson of our Parshat Masei? Think about it! We backed off during the Six-Day War when we had the opportunity to liberate Har HaBayit, relinquishing it to Jordanian Wakf authority. When we had the opportunity to eradicate the PLO, we let Arafat and his band of terrorists escape. We failed to put down and destroy the so-called “intifadas” of the 1980s and early 1990s. We let the politicians make Oslo, then gave away 80% of Hevron and then expel Jews from Gush Katif in Gaza — despite a people’s referendum vote against such expulsion. So we had suicide terror blowing up buses, Sbarros, bulldozer terror attacks, attacks on Shuls and Talmidei Chachamim and much more. We depend on Arab labor to build our buildings so that the Kablanim rake in excessive profits, while denying Jews training in construction fields, jobs and competitive wages, not to mention families being unable to find affordable housing in Israel’s major cities..
“Pins in your eyes and thorns in your sides” — Traveling in Yehuda and the Shomron nowadays is with trepidation, due our governmental vacillation [noun: a state of indecision or irresolution] which has caused the gradual loss of fear of us and loss of our deterrent credibility on the part of our enemies, where once, one could drive through Yesha casually with an Israeli flag attached to the radio antenna and an elbow out the window (attributed to “Where There Are No Men, Be a Man,” by Moshe Feiglin). Now, riots and terror in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Lod, Ramla, Beer Sheva, Elad, etc. as well as sporadic and seemingly annual massive rocket bombardments launched at us from Gaza, and occasionally from Lebanon.
Rabbi Goldin pens a concluding thought as Sefer Bamidbar comes to an end (“Unlocking the Torah Text,” Sefer Bamidbar, page 323):
Each step of the B’nei Yisrael’s carefully recorded journey is designed to move the nation one step further from Egypt, to further complete their transformation from servile slaves to a nation worthy of it’s destiny. It is this journey of the spirit, described in a detailed itinerary as the book of Bamidbar… close[s], that defines the entire book in retrospect.
May we, the B’nei Yisrael be zocha that our brethren — the refugee families from Gush Katif be permanently settled and be made totally whole — be totally restituted for all that was stolen from them, that the thrice expelled families of Amona be restored to their rebuilt homes and the oft-destroyed Yeshiva buildings in Homesh be rebuilt, all at total government expense; due to alt-leftist-agendized, supreme court legalized Yassamnik gunpoint. Baruch Hashem that our dear brother Jonathan Pollard is now in his third year at home in Eretz Yisrael and has embarked on a new chapter in his life. May Esther Yocheved bat Yechiel Avraham have an aliyah in Shemayim and may her spirit and memory continue to lift Jonathan to at least 120 years. May the MIAs be liberated alive and returned to us in ways befitting Al Kiddush Hashem — as with the return in April, 2019, via Russia, of the remains of Zachariah Baumel, as should the remains of the two chayalim from the Gaza War of nine years ago. May we have the courage and strength to stand up and physically prevent the possibility of Chas V’Challila any future eviction of Jews from their homes and prevent Chas V’Challila the handing of Jewish land over to anyone, let alone to enemies sworn to Israel’s and Judaism’s destruction and eradication. And may we soon and finally see the total end to the Communist Chinese corona virus pandemic and all like viruses. May we fulfill Hashem’s blueprint of B’nei Yisrael as a Unique people — an Am Segula, not to be reckoned with as with “the nations” and may we be zocha to see the Moshiach, the Ge’ula Shlaima, as Dov Shurin sings; “Ki Karov Yom Hashem Al’Kol HaGoyim”, the Ultimate Redemption, bimhayrah b’yamainu — speedily, in our time”, — Achshav, Chik Chuk, Miyad, Etmol!!!
Good Shabbos!
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Moshe Burt, an Oleh, is a commentator on news and events in Israel and Founder and Director of The Sefer Torah Recycling Network. He lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh.
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