Shelah Lekha (Midrash)

Precious Emissaries of Mitzvah

In the first midrash of this parsha we encounter a new kind of opening, one which we shall find regularly in Deuteronomy Rabbah—a halakhic question, opening with the word “halakah,” followed by a legal discussion which thereafter branches out to other, more traditional kinds of midrashic matters. Numbers Rabbah 16.1:

Halakhah: What is [the law] regarding setting sail on the Great Sea three days prior to Shabbat? Our rabbis taught: One does not set sail on a ship on the Great Sea three days prior to Shabbat when he is going to a distant place, but if he wishes to sail [a distance] as that from Tyre to Sidon he may do so, even on the Eve of the Sabbath, because it is known that he can get there while it is still day.

This law is a typical Rabbinic gezerah, an edict introduced to “keep a person far from sin”: in this case, by avoiding a situation in which a person may find himself on the high seas during the Sabbath due to lack of foresight. It is interesting to ask how this ought to be applied in a modern world, in which we have means of transportation tenfold and a hundred-fold faster than those known in ancient times. Today, it is perfectly feasible to fly halfway across the world in the course of a single day, or even in a single daytime (on long summer days, particularly if flying East to West, with the sun). Is it permitted / advisable / proper to undertake such a journey on a Sabbath Eve? What if something goes wrong? I’m the last person to suggest new humrot (stringencies), but the question deserves reflection. I often wondered about this halakhah during my bachelor days in Boston, when I would undertake the four-hour drive from Boston to New York on a Friday, perhaps starting at mid-day. Even if I was invited to someone’s home and needn’t lift a finger to cook or shop or do anything concrete, was this the ideal way…? Should a pious Jew who cherishes the Shabbat avoid such situations so as to demonstrate his devotion to the Sabbath? And yet, our modern world is so much constructed upon the maximal exploitation of time, and such travel is a virtual requirement of certain professions and endeavors; to forbid them or discourage them, even on Fridays, might be felt as forcing the modern observant Jew into a kind of ghetto.

The point here is not strictness as an end in itself, nor even to ask how much of a buffer zone is required by the halakhah to prevent actual desecration of the Shabbat, but to what extent one wants to assure that one is in ones “place” for Shabbat long enough in advance to experience Erev Shabbat—the sense of easing ones way into Shabbat in a calm, “Shabbosdik” mood. (See HY II: Beshalah on the custom in my local synagogue of not saying Tahanun on Friday mornings, as a sign of that entire day being shaped by the anticipation of Shabbat; this atmosphere, in at least certain places in Israel, is one of the important components of the “Jewish street.”) Rav Soloveitchik ztz”l once commented that the modern Orthodox Jew “knows about Shabbat, but not about Erev Shabbat… he comes rushing into the Shabbat at 80 miles an hour.”

It is perhaps not as widely known as it should be that the Rav, alongside being a “man of halakhah”—an erudite, incisive, powerfully analytic jurist, a man of law—was also a person of profound religious emotion and sentiment, who was known to bemoan the fact that his closest students “worship God with their minds and with their hands, but not with their hearts.” Perhaps his “loneliness” (with which he opened his seminal essay Lonely Man of Faith) stemmed from the realization that, adulated though he might be, he really fit in nowhere within the emergent world of Orthodoxy: neither among the modern Orthodox, whom he saw as too cold and formal, almost technical in their approach; nor among the emerging new breed of Haredim—aggressive, triumphalist, political, yet ultimately insular and somewhat simplistic. He belonged to a third type, a kind of old-fashioned Jew who adhered to the halakhah in an utterly natural, unapologetic way without succumbing to narrow-minded dogmatism. His was an adult, sophisticated faith, sensitive to the complexities of life, while deeply rooted in family and communal tradition, which celebrated intangibles like the “feel” of “Erev…” (On the centrality of this emotional element, see the final page of his phenomenology of the religious experience, “Uvikashtem misham.”)

But let us continue:

[This is said] of an emissary for a permitted thing [i.e., one travelling on his personal business], but if he was an emissary of a mitzvah, he may go on any day that he wishes. Why? Because he is an emissary of a mitzvah, and an emissary of a mitzvah overrides the Sabbath. Similarly we find regarding the Sukkah, that they taught that emissaries of mitzvah are exempt from [sitting in the] sukkah. For there is nothing so precious before the Holy One blessed be He as an emissary who has been sent to do a mitzvah, and gives over his soul to succeed in his mission.

The final phrase—that a shaliah mitzvah, an ”emissary for a commandment,” is “precious before God”—is a very interesting one, implying far more than meets the eye. There are of course innumerable mitzvot that every observant Jew performs every day, without needing to travel. The sense here is that there is a distinction between the regular, “routine” religious life, and those special tasks that a person undertakes, specific tasks that he is sent to perform or feels called to take upon himself, that is somehow seen as a “mitzvah” in an intensified sense. These are usually practical goals of one kind or another intended to help others: projects on behalf of the community, on behalf of other Jews who are in some sort of difficulty or need; collecting money to redeem captives, to assist indigent orphans to marry, or to organize a Jewish school or synagogue where there is none. Today, it may often involve the seriously ill who are in urgent need of an expensive medical procedure; or perhaps making peace between neighbors, or between husband and wife.

What, then, is meant by saying that these things are “precious” before God? This seems to suggest a certain theological ranking: there are symbolic, ceremonial mitzvot, whose goal is essentially educational—training and reminding the person that he must be constantly aware of God and of the world as a field in which to serve Him; and then there are mitzvot which accomplish some actual good, which leave some concrete result in the world—which are, so to speak, the thing itself. I do not mean to articulate here a simplistic “social action” or “ethical monotheism” position, such as that espoused by classical Reform—which, in the US, in practice meant the Democratic Party platform. To put it somewhat more traditional terms—there is a tension between the quest for knowledge of God as the ultimate goal of Torah, as found in much mystical thought, and the imitation of God’s ethical attributes, imitatio dei, “doing loving-kindness, justice and righteousness,” as the sine qua non. Note the final chapter of Maimonides’ Guide (III.54), which he concludes with a reading of Jeremiah 9:23, in which knowledge of the Divine ultimately leads to the performance of ethics. See also Heschel’s Torah min ha-Shamayim be-aspaklaryah shel hadorot, in which he describes these two approaches, inter alia, as characteristic, respectively, of the school of Rabbi Akiva as against that of Rabbi Yishmael.

It is interesting that the sense of the urgency of shelihut mitzvah as superior to other religious precepts is rarely invoked today—certainly not as overriding the Shabbat, or even exempting those doing it from part of the daily round of routine mitzvot. Even in the Israeli army, those leniencies permitted by the Army Rabbinate are almost always justified by pikuah nefesh, involvement in the actual protection of life and limb, rather than by the more general rubric of a soldier being conceived of as a sheliah mitzvah.

And there were no people who were sent to perform a mitzvah and gave their soul to succeed in their mission like these two who were went by Joshua son of Nun, as is said: “And Joshua son of Nun sent two from the Shittim” [Josh 2:1]. Who were they? Our Rabbis taught: they were Pinhas and Kaleb, and they went and gave their souls, and were successful in their mission.

There follows a discussion of their mission, their encounter in Jericho with Rahab the harlot, various miraculous stories about Pinhas who could make himself invisible at will, etc. It then concludes with the following comment, tying it to the Torah lesson:

To teach how much these two righteous men gave their souls to perform their mission; but the messengers emissaries sent by Moses were wicked, from what we read in the matter, “Send you people” [Num 13:2].

“The Blue is similar to the Sea”

Towards the end of the parsha there is a midrash on the mitzvah of tzitzit—the ritual fringes worn on the corners of four-sided garments, and of course on the tallit. This midrash, like the one with which we opened, also presents an amalgam of halakhah and aggadah. Numbers Rabbah 17.5:

“And they shall make for themselves fringes” [Num 15:38]. Of this it is written, “Light is sown for the righteous” [Ps 97:11]. “The Lord wished for his righteousness’s sake” [Isa 42:21]—the Holy One blessed be He sowed the Torah and the mitzvot so as to inherit them to Israel for the life of the World to Come. And he did not leave any thing in the world in which he did not give a commandment to Israel. A person goes out to plow— “do not plow with an ox and an ass” [Deut 22:10]; to sow—“Do not sow your field [with mixed kinds] [ibid., v. 9]; to reap—“When you harvest your field…” [Deut 24:19]; to knead—“the first meal of your kneading trough [you shall present…] [Num 15:20]; to slaughter animals —“and you shall give to the priest the shoulder and the cheeks and the stomach” [Deut 18:3]; [he encounters] a bird’s nest—the sending away [of the mother] from the nest [Deut 22:6-7]; [he slaughters] non-domesticated beasts and birds—“and you shall pour out his blood and cover it with dust” [Lev 17:13]; he plants—“and you shall leave its fruit as forbidden” [Lev 19:23]; he buries his dead—“do not cut yourselves“ [Deut 14:1]; he cuts his hair—“do not round [the corners of your head]” [Lev 19:27]; he builds a house—“and you shall make a parapet” [Deut 22:9]; [and] “write them upon your doorposts” [Deut 6:9]; he covers himself with a garment—“and they shall make for themselves fringes” [op cit.]

This lengthy passage celebrates the sheer diversity and ubiquity of the mitzvot, enumerating the manifold areas of life in which they appear. In terms of our earlier discussion: some are “ritual” mitzvot, reminders of God’s presence, our duty to Him, our gratitude for his blessings and bounty, in each and every area of life; while others have a concrete ethical content: e.g., not plowing with an ox and a donkey, so as to avoid suffering to the mismatched animals. All of this, by way of prelude to the possibly unexpected idea of a mitzvah relating to ones clothing.

“They shall make for themselves”—make it, and not from that which is already made. That they not remove from the threads of the garment and make it from them; rather, the mitzvah is to bring white and blue [threads] and make it. When? When the blue is available. But now we have only white, as the azure has been lost. “On the corners”—not in the middle, but on the edge. “A cord”—that he must spin them [and not use isolated fibers].

Here, rather unusually in the Midrash Rabbah, we have a halakhic passage, defining some of the rules pertaining to the actual performance of the mitzvah. This passage notes that one of the salient aspects of tzitzit—the blue thread that is intermingled with the white ones—has in fact been defunct for millennia, and was already an established fact well before the time of our midrash. Interestingly, over the past century and a half various attempts have been made to recover the tekhelet: by the Razhiner Rebbe in Galicia; by the late Chief Rabbi Herzog, who wrote a doctoral dissertation on the subject; and, most recently, by various individuals, including a local dentist, who claim to have discovered the authentic tekhelet and sell it to all those interested. The difficulty is that the dye required to make the exact shade of blue required, as defined by the halakhah, is taken from the blood of a rather rare mollusk, whose identification is not entirely clear. The new group claims to have verified its authenticity beyond all doubt, and have begun cultivating colonies of these creatures, somewhere on the Mediterranean coast off Spain, to facilitate the mitzvah for Jews who long to “return the crown to its ancient glory.” I am not qualified to judge the validity of these claims; in any event, over the past decades one sees more and more people wearing tekhelet, both on their talitot and on the tzitzit the wear underneath their garments. This is part of a trend to restore other ancient, long forgotten practices (what Scholem called “Restorative Messianism”—the wish to reconstruct Jewish life and observance as it was in ancient times). Thus, other people wish to reintroduce the eating of locusts (!) as a “kosher snack” for all Jews, not only those handful of Yemenites who have a tradition of eating them. In still other circles there is a return to wearing tefillin all day, and not only for morning prayers, as is the usual practice of even the most pious, with a very few extraordinary exceptions, such as the Vilna Gaon.

R. Meir said: In what way is tekhelet-blue different from all other colors? That the blue is similar [to the sea, and the sea is similar] to the firmament, and the firmament is similar to the Throne of Glory. As is said: “And they saw the God of Israel, and beneath his feet… like the very brilliance of the heavens for purity” [Exod 24:10].

Suddenly we turn. This saying of R. Meir explains the spiritual impact of the blue, as going far beyond a mere arbitrary halakhic detail. He seems to suggest that the blue threads may serve as catalyst to a meditation, that can lead through a rather short series of associations to a profound theosophic experience: to the vision of “the Throne of Glory” itself. There is a sublimity to the color blue which seems to invite such reflections, as if the Godhead itself were next to him.

“And they shall be for you as fringes” [Num ibid., v. 39] that it be visible. And what is its length? Beit Shammai said: four fingers. Beit Hillel said: three fingers. And how many threads must it have? Beit Shammai said: four. Beit Hillel said: three. “And you shall see it”—to exclude a night covering. Or is this [phrase] only to exclude a blind person [from the obligation]? It again says: “that you may remember” [v. 40]. It mentions seeing and it mentions remembering: remembering for one who does not see, and seeing for one who does see. “And you shall see ‘it’” [oto, i.e., in the masculine] and not ‘it’ [otah, in the feminine, which would grammatically match the gender of tzitzit]. That if you do this, it is as if you see the Throne of Glory, which is similar to azure.

Again, almost as an aside, the midrash notes an anomaly in the choice of language (the use of a masculine rather than a feminine pronoun in referring to tzitzit), that it sees as pointing towards a transcendental, almost mystical experience—by gazing at the tzitzit one sees, not them, but the Divine Chariot or Throne itself!

“And you shall see… and you shall remember” [ibid., v. 39]. Seeing leads to remembering, and remembering leads to action. As is said, “that you may remember and do.” Why? “Because it is not an empty thing to you” [Deut 32:47].

This halakhic section ends with a short lesson in the nature of religious symbolism. “Seeing leads to remembering,” etc. That is, that symbols are not intended to be routine, rote activities, but to bring into play the memory, the function of the mind, perhaps of histiruacl consciousness, which in turn lead to action. This may also be a hint, as above, that the practical mitzvah in themselves are not to considered as “action,” but must lead to further action in the world, i.e., in the seculum.

This may be compared to a householder who was weighing tax monies and writing receipts [apakheyot; better: anpariot, “calculations,” as per the parallel in Tanhuma – Mirkin]. His father said to him: My son, be careful with these calculations, for your life depends on them. Thus said the Holy One blessed be He to Israel: “for it is not an empty thing to you, for it is your life.”