‘Parsha Growth Spurts’[1]
Rabbi Dani Staum
Parshas Ki Setzei 5773
“And you will desire her, you may take her to yourself for a wife.” (Devorim 21:11)
Rav Zalman Sorotzkin zt’l (Oznayim L’Torah) notes that in our day and age many people are under the impression that marriage can only occur when two people ‘fall in love’. The Torah warns that a marriage which results solely from “you shall desire her” – from the eye seeing and the heart desiring – will end in a less-than-positive manner. When the original desire passes, the spouses will realize that there is nothing deeper connecting them, and that their diverse natures and temperaments make them ill-suited to remain together.
In our world, when the yetzer hara is often the ‘shadchan’, and there is a much mistaken notion of love, there is greater propensity for marriages to fail.
In truth, marriage is completely divinely ordained and inspired. Chazal (Sotah 4a) relate that when ‘ish’ and ‘isha’ live a Torah life together, the shechina rests among them (the yud from ish and the hei from isha compose a name of Hashem). However, when Hashem is expelled from a home, all that is left is two fires (the aleph and shin of both words compose the word aish).
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“You shall not see the ox of your brother… and hide yourself from them; you shall surely return them to your brother.” (Devorim 22:1)
Ibn Ezra explains that the Torah juxtaposes the mitzvah of hashavas aveidah with the laws of warfare to teach that one is obligated in the mitzvah of hashavas aveidah even as he is heading off to war.
Rav Henoch Leibowitz zt’l (Chidushei HaLev) notes that the pasuk is obviously not referring to when a soldier is in a life-threatening situation, because at such a time one is surely exempt from worrying about someone else’s object. A military camp during war is tumultuous and tense as soldiers are anxious, physically weary, and preoccupied with the pressures of warfare. At such a time a person is prone to ignore the basic needs of others, and to lose sensitivity to their property. But the Torah demands sensitivity under all circumstances, even during the most stressful and pressure-ridden situations.
Rav Leibowitz compares this to an exhausted mother who, after a full day tending her household, finally puts all her children to bed and falls into a deep sleep. Just as it seems like nothing can rouse her, her baby begins crying in the room down the hall, and she jumps out of bed to immediately tend to its needs.
Rav Leibowitz relates that one year on Yom Kippur, Reb Yisrael Salanter walked by a man who was involved in deep introspection. When Reb Yisrael asked him the time, the man did not even look up. This incident was part of what promoted Reb Yisrael to promote the study of mussar.
One must be sensitive to the needs of others even during times of stress and pressure.
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“For Hashem, your G-d, walks in the midst of your camp…” (Devorim 23:15)
At the first Knessiah Gedolah of Agudas Yisroel in Elul 5683 (1923) in Vienna, many of the Gedolei Hador from all over Europe were in attendance. At the helm was the elderly Chofetz Chaim zt’l.
Before the meeting began the Chofetz Chaim addressed the distinguished assemblage by relating the following: “Rabbosai, we have gathered here from many countries to seek advice and counsel about how to deal with the challenges and travails that plague our nation, both physically and spiritually. It is incumbent upon us to know from the outset what was guaranteed to us in the Torah:“For Hashem, your G-d, walks in the midst of your camp to rescue you and to deliver your enemies from before you; so your camp shall be holy, so that He will not see a shameful thing among you and turn away behind you.”If we ensure that our camp is morally pure then we are assured of Hashem’s protection. However, if there is immorality among us then, G-d forbid, the Torah warns that Hashem will turn away from us.
Therefore, if we do not first convene to ensure that there is no peritzus (breaches of halacha) in regards to the laws of modesty, what is the point of our discussing anything else? If we ourselves have driven Hashem from our camp, all other discussions are futile. Therefore, we must first repair that which has been breached, and then we can be confident that Hashem will make all of our other efforts successful.”
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Sources: Choeftz Chaim – quoted in Otzaros HaTorah
[1] This series was originally written for and published in Hamodia.