וכל מעשר בקר וצאן כל אשר יעבר תחת השבט העשירי יהי' קדש לד': לא יבקר בין טוב לרע ולא ימירנו ואם המר ימירנו והי' הוא ותמורתו יהי' קדש לא יגאל: אלה המצות אשר צוה ד' את משה אל בני ישראל בהר סיני: (“And every tithe of cattle and ovicaprids, everything that passes under the rod, the tenth one will be holy to Ha-Shem. One may not choose between good and bad, nor may one substitute it; and if nonetheless he substitutes it, it will be that it and its substitute will be holy; it will not be redeemed. These are the mitzvoth which Ha-Shem has commanded Moshe to the bënei Yisra’él on Mt Sinai”). These three verses constitute the maftir reading, ending our parasha and the book of Leviticus.
At first blush, the last verse appears superfluous: After all, at the beginning of parshath Bë-Har we learnt that shëmitta was given with all its details at Mt Sinai, primâ facie evidence, as Hazal put it, that כל המצות נאמרו כללותיהן ופרטותיהן מסיני (“the generalities and details of all the mitzvoth were said from Sinai”; תורת כהנים שם). Since we already know that Moshe was commanded all of the mitzvoth on Sinai in order to transmit them to Israel, what purpose does this repetition serve?
Its logical connection to the description of the mitzva of ma‘sér preceding it also seems tenuous. The Torah apparently wishes to convey something to us concerning the nature of all the mitzvoth by means of this juxtaposition of ma‘sér to this restatement that all the mitzvoth were given at Sinai. What might that be?
B.
The Jewish world tends to group activities into three broad categories: There are mitzvoth ‘asé, that is, actions which are obligatory at certain times or under certain conditions. Some examples include the mitzva to eat matza on Passover; the mitzva to count the ‘omer; dwelling in a sukka and taking the arba‘a minim on Sukkoth; laying tëfillin on weekday mornings; circumcizing one’s son on the eighth day of his life; redeeming a first-born son from a kohén; and so on. Then there are mitzvoth lo’ tha‘ase, prohibitions, such as performing mëlachoth on shabbath or yom tov, eating hamétz on Passover, eating non-kosher food in general, murder, robbery, theft, etc. Between the two, lies a range of activities considered muttar, permissible, neither required nor forbidden.
It follows that performing that first class of activities is by definition tov, “good,” as is refraining from the second set, which are by definition ra‘, “bad,” as King David advised, סור מרע ועשה טוב, “turn away from ra‘ and do tov”; Psalms XXXVII, 27). The third class leaves scope for both possibilities, as Ramban famously comments on Leviticus XIX, 2: קדשים תהיו כי קדוש אני ד' אלקיכם (“you should be holy for I, Ha-Shem your G-d, am holy”) means that one should not be a naval bi-rshuth ha-Torah, “one who behaves ignobly within the confines of Torah.” The séfer Hovoth ha-Lëvavoth warns us at some length of this phenomenon, and recommends that we examine our actions constantly, לעמוד על כונתך, הרי אתה יכול להוודע על כך בעצמך כו' מזהו הגמול אתה מקוה להשיג על ידו וממי אתה מצפה לו ואם זה מאת השי"ת הרי זה שלם וגו' (“to discern your intentions; you can obtain knowledge of this by yourself... What is the benefit you hope to obtain through it, and from whom do you expect it; and if it is from Ha-Shem, this is perfect....”; שם שער ה' פרק ו' בתרגום ר' שמואל ברח"י ירושלמי מהמקור בערבית).
In other words, the “perfection” of one’s actions boils down to a matter of kavvana, of intent, with which any given action is performed: If it is lë-shém shamayim so that, for instance, one eats and drinks with the specific intent in mind that one’s strength be restored in order to learn Torah and do mitzvoth, then the act is holy, complete, perfect; otherwise, it is not. We find this brought down lë-halacha in the Shulhan ‘Aruch, שכל מעשיו יהיו לש"ש שאפילו דברים של רשות כגון האכילה והשתי' כו' וכל צרכי גופך יהיו כולם לבודת בוראך וגו' (“that all one’s actions should be for the sake of heaven, that even matters of permission such as eating and drinking... and all your bodily needs should all of them be for the service of your Creator”; או"ח סי' רל"א).
With this in mind, we note that the sëfarim ha-qëdoshim explain divrei rëshuth, matters of permission, i.e., those things which are normally considered neither obligatory nor forbidden but simply muttar have their metaphysical root and origin in the nogah, the “radiance” or “shine” of the supernal, eternal light which is the source of qëdusha, of sanctity, and hence of the Torah and its mitzvoth. This means that such things are at the knife-edge between qodesh and hol, tahara and tum’a, capable of going either way. It follows, therefore, that when an adam mi-Yisra’él accesses a proper kavvana in performing such a dëvar rëshuth, he sanctifies it, causes it to be illuminated by the supernal light of qëdusha, and thereby renders it qodesh; and if he does otherwise, halila, it can go the other way, and become a qëlippa, a “shell”, a veil obscuring and hiding that very supernal light (עיי' למשל ספר תניא ליקוטי אמרים פ"ז פ"ח ופל"ז).
This, it seems to me, is what the Torah wants us to take from the mitzva of ma‘sér and apply to kol ha-Torah kullah: לא יבקר בין טוב לרע, one should not choose the things which are “between good and bad,” the things at the hairline border, but rather one should strive always to be mëchavvén, to direct one’s intentions to the tov, the holy and pure purposes of Torah and mitzvoth, thereby to elevate the world, and all of our actions in it, to be illuminated by the light in which the holy Torah originates.
C.
This, perhaps, explains the juxtaposition of the other mitzvoth to ma‘sér, but it does not explain the repetitive nature of the last verse.
Hazal tell us that Mt Sinai was not a mighty mountain; to the contrary, it was chosen as the site of Mattan Torah מפני שהוא נמוך מכל ההרים (“because it is the lowest of mountains”; סוטה ה.), and yet again: "למה תרצדון הרים גבנונים" יצאה בת קול ואמרה להם למה תרצו דין עם סיני כולכם בעלי מומין אתם אצל סיני כו' אמר רב אשי ש"מ האי מאן דיהיר בעל מום הוא (“‘Why do you look askance [tëratzdun], craggy mountains?’ [Psalms LXVIII, 17] A heavenly voice rang out and told them, 'Why do wish to take Sinai to court [tirtzu din, a play on words]? All of you are defective compared to Sinai... Said Rav Ashi, 'We learn from this that one who is arrogant has a defect'”; מגילה כ"ט.). In other words, Sinai is the very symbol of modesty and humility.
This prompted Rabbi Lévi Yitzhaq of Barditchev to write: "משה קבל תורה מסיני" יש לדקדק דהוה לי' למימר "בסיני" ונראה לבאר דהנה כתוב "והאיש משה ענו נאד מכל האדם" וגו' וכן במצרים אמר "מי אנכי כי אלך" וגו' וכשאמר לו הקב"ה שיתן התורה על ידו והוא יהי' רבן של ישראל לא סירב כלל והיכן ענותנותו אמנם אדרבה היא הנותנת כי משה רבנו ע"ה הסתכל שהתורה תינתן על הר סיני והטעם כמו שארז"ל כו' וראה כי אין התורה ניתנה כי אם ע"י השפל והגרוע מהכל לכן מיד נתרצה שתנתן התורה על ידו מחמת רוב ענותנותו שחשב שאין בישראל גרוע ממנו וגו' (“‘Moshe received the Torah from Sinai’ [אבות פ"א מ"א]; one must be precise, for [the mishna] ought to say ‘on Sinai’. And it seems [possible] to explain, since it is written, ‘And the man Moshe was very much more humble than any person....’ [Numbers XII, 3], and also in Egypt, he said ‘Who am I that I should go?’ [Exodus III, 11]. Yet, when the Holy One, Blessed is He, told him that He would give the Torah through him, he did not refuse at all, and where was his humility? But rather to the contrary, it was the prerequisite, for Moshe our teacher foresaw that the Torah would be given on Mt Sinai, for the reason Hazal said [above], and he saw that the Torah would only be given through the lowliest and least of them all; therefore, he was immediately willing that the Torah be given through him because of his great humility, for he thought that none in Israel was lower than him....”; קדושת לוי ליקוטים ריש אבות).
The exemplary humility through which Moshe merited to receive the Torah directly from G-d on Israel’s behalf shines through the very first word of the Book of Leviticus, va-yiqra’, “and He called” (whence it takes its Hebrew name). In the séfer Torah the word is written with an unusually tiny final alef, and Hazal explain the reason: Moshe originally wrote the word without an alef, spelling va-yiqqor (“and he happened”), not wishing to make his level of prophecy seem any higher than that of the other nations (cf., e.g., Numbers XXIII, 4 concerning Balsam). G-d gave him a direct order to write the alef, so he complied, but wrote it very small.
If one looks in the séfer Torah, one notices the tiny alef. It is written not on the line, at the foot of the other letters, but at the top. The alef, tiny in humble self-abnegation, has had an alias....
D.
The relevance of our parasha to this season of sëfirath ha-‘omer, counting up to the day on which Israel began receiving the Torah, should be clear to all. The object of qabbalath ha-Torah, of receiving Torah and learning it, is not the mere intellectual exercise. The purpose must be qinyan Torah, its acquisition and internalization, such that it suffuses the Jewish character and comes to be applied to all situations one encounters. This is the point of the zustell, the juxtaposition, of “you shall not choose between food and bad” to the brief account of Mattan Torah: one should strive consciously always to be on the side of qëdusha and tahara, as we clarified above.
The way to accomplish qinyan Torah requires humility, the characteristic which, as we have seen, qualified Moshe to receive and disseminate the Torah; a quality which he learnt from Mt Sinai.
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