Parshat Tetzaveh
February 18th-19th, 2000
13 Adar I, 5760
I have some important news for you, so get ready. You may never have realized
it, but you are a mitzvah. No, that's not a typo, or an error in syntax. I
says what I mean, and I means what I say: you are a mitzvah.
Would it help if--for emphasis--I put a word or two in
boldface, and maybe employed an underline? You are a mitzvah. Or, maybe:You
are a mitzvah. (I can hear your own thoughts loud and clear, with boldface:
"Time to check out some other parsha sheet!")
Let me try to explain. This week's parsha begins with the commandment to use
only the very purest olive oil in lighting the golden Menorah that stood in the
Tabernacle (and later the Temple), and which, broadly speaking, represented "the
light of the spirit" and "the illumination of Torah." (Rabbi Eli
Munk, Call of the Torah; II, 377-8)
"And you [Moshe] shall command the Children
of Israel that they shall take for you pure, pressed olive oil for illumination, to kindle
the lamp continually." (27, 20.)
The Midrash (Shemos Rabbah) examines this verse, and
quotes from the Book of Jeremiah (11, 16) which states that G-d called the Jewish
people, "a leafy olive tree, beautiful with shapely fruit." As expounded
by the Sages, this metaphor yields several important teachings about the unique nature and
mission of the Jewish people, among which are the following:
"All fluids become mixed with each other, while
[olive] oil does not become mixed but, rather, stands on its own; so, too, Israel is not
meant to become mixed with the nations. Just as [olive] oil illuminates, so, too, the Beis
Hamikdash (Temple) illuminates the whole world.for this reason, our forefathers were
called, "a leafy olive tree," since they illuminate everything with their
faith.(36, 1; my translation)
The Midrash clearly expresses that our task is to be
"a light unto the nations," a phrase familiar to almost every Jewish man
and woman-however little time (unfortunately) they may spend figuring out how to go about
it. And, in order to enable us to carry out that task, the Torah tells us not to
intermingle, neither in the realm of marriage nor of morals; our fundamental apartness or
separation (havdalah)-though just how black the lines of demarcation should be has always
been a matter of discussion throughout our history-was well perceived by the non-Jewish
prophet, Bilaam, in the Book of Bamidbar (Numbers): "Behold, it is a nation that will
dwell in solitude." (23, 9)
The Midrash continues to explore the characterization of the Jewish people as an
olive tree, pointing out that the Jewish people learn Torah, which is a source of
spiritual illumination for them; Scripture even refers to a mitzvah as a ner, a candle or
lamp, which prompts the following question and answer:
"Why is the mitzvah, 'a lamp'? Because if one
performs a commandment it is as if he had kindled a light before God and as if he had
revived his own soul, which is also called a lamp, for it says, 'The soul of man is the
lamp of the Lord (Proverbs. XX, 27).'"
So, a mitzvah is called a ner, because it gives life to
one's soul (neshamah)-which is also called a ner. (And the Midrash got to that point
by showing a connection in the Torah's verse between the Children of Israel and the
light-giving oil of the olive tree.)
Enter R. Yehudah Leib Alter (1847-1905), the second Rebbe of the Gerrer Chasidic
dynasty, and a towering giant in all areas of Torah knowledge (including your favorite,
Kabbalah!). In his profound collection of lectures on the Chumash, S'fas Emes,
Rabbi Alter explores the depths of this idea that "the soul is a lamp of the
Lord."
G-d's Providence ("the lamp of the Lord"), he explains, becomes manifest
in the physical world by means of the collective soul of the Jewish people: how
well the Jewish people serve Hashem determines how much the world is illuminated by the
"light" of holiness, how much G-d (so to speak) makes His presence palpable in
the world. When we do a mitzvah, it is as if we "kindle a light before
G-d," the Midrash says: that is to say that we prepare a place on earth for the glory
of His Kingship to rest. This also revives and illuminates our own souls:
"According to how much a person illuminates the 'darkness' of physicality through the
lamps of the mitzvos, to that extent is he worthy to bring down 'light' from on high to
his own soul."
Very nice. But the S'fas Emes doesn't stop there. It seems--if I
understand him correctly--that he is struck by the grammatical form of the
word, "command," which the Torah uses in the first verse of the parsha:
"And you shall command (tetzaveh) the Children of Israel." The Torah simply
could have said, "tzav," the normal imperative form of the word,
"command," and the word used in many other places in the Torah when Hashem gives
Moshe a commandment. Why, instead, does it say, "tetzaveh?"
The S'fas Emes reads the verse as if it were saying, "And you will make the
Children of Israel into a mitzvah." In other words, as he explains,
Hashem is telling Moshe that ".he should bring the mitzvah into the souls of
the Children of Israel, such that they themselves will be the mitzvos."
(Presumably, that means he should teach it in a way to (forgive the pun)
ignite the very souls of the Jewish people.) For, as he continues, the 248
"limbs" of the body--which the Sages mention in different places--exactly
correspond to the 248 positive commandments of the Torah. He concludes:
".the rectification of a person is by means of the mitzvos, for he must be
specifically designated [only] for Hashem, since he was sent into the world for the
sole purpose of doing the Will of His Creator. And, so, it turns out that he himself
is the mitzvah [my emphasis]. And that is the meaning of [the blessing we say on the
performance of a mitzvah], 'Who sanctified us with His mitzvos and commanded us to.' [as
if it says, 'Who sanctified us with His Mitzvos and made us ourselves into mitzvos.']
Last week, we talked about making ourselves into a living mikdash (Tabernacle); this week,
we find out that we ourselves, in our essence, are living mitzvos. I'm a mitzvah,
you're a mitzvah.move over, Dr. Pepper, Hashem has spoken!
Good Shabbos!
Insights Into Genesis
Insights Into Exodus
Rabbi Yosef
Edelstein is Director
of the the Savannah Kollel and the
Savannah Torah Education Project (STEP).
Phone: 912-355-0157;
fax: 912-354-9923; e-mail: Yosef18@aol.com
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