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BEGIN WITH A GRIN

A Border Police officer stops a car for a routine check at the entrance to Yerushalayim and asks the driver suspiciously: “Tell me, why do you have all these penguins in the back of your car?”

The driver answers: “What do you mean? I picked them up along the way. I don’t know what to do with them, they’re just sitting here.”

The officer scratches his head and says: “Listen, this isn’t right. Take them right now to the Biblical Zoo.”

The driver agrees and drives off.

The next day, the same Border Police officer stops the same driver again. He looks in the back window and sees all the penguins sitting there, this time wearing sunglasses.

The officer gets angry and shouts: “I told you to take them to the zoo! What are they doing here again?!”

The driver answers: “You’re right, yesterday we were at the zoo and they had such a great time… so today we’re going to the beach!”

OUTER LIMITS

It is well known from the words of the Shelah HaKadosh, that there is a special connection between the weekly parsha and the time of year in which it is read. This is always true, applying to every month of the year and to all the parshiyos, but there is a special connection between the days of “Bein HaMetzarim” (the period between the 17th of Tammuz and Tisha BAv) and the parshiyos read on those Shabbosos. We find an indication of this in the words of the Shelah himself—as an example of this connection between the time of year and the parsha, the Shelah specifically cites our parshiyos (Mattos, Masei, and Devarim), which are always read during the days of Bein HaMetzarim!

In light of this, a great question arises about an apparent contradiction between the days of Bein HaMetzarim and the content of this week’s parsha. In Parshas Masei to be precise, the Torah teaches us about the borders of the Promised Land: “This is the land that shall fall to you as an inheritance, the land of Canaan according to its borders” (Masei 34:2) at the very time when we are in the period of which we say, “we have been exiled from our land, and removed far from our soil.”

Did the Torah not find a more fitting time to describe the borders of the Land than now, during Bein HaMetzarim? Isn’t this like “mocking the poor,” like showing a baby chocolate and then not giving it to him? Sounds a bit strange, doesn’t it?

This question will soon be answered by another question in our parsha, an interesting nuance in Rashi’s comment on the borders of the Land. The Torah describes many borders, cities, and territories as part of the Promised Land, and in most places where the term “gevul” (border) would be used—the term the Torah itself uses to describe the Land’s borders—Rashi chooses to use a different word, slightly different. Rashi uses the term “metzar,” a word that is far less common (appearing only twice in the entire Tanach!) and arguably far less apt. Why does Rashi specifically choose the rather obscure word “metzar” instead of the much more common word “gevul”? Especially since “gevul” is the very word the Torah itself chose to use!

In a wonderful sicha (Likkutei Sichos vol. 38 Masei alef), the Rebbe MH’M explains Rashi’s approach, and the Chassidic depth, the “wine of Torah,” that can be learned from these profound words.

The simple explanation is that the word “gevul” has two meanings: (a) the border and edge of the territory, i.e. the line separating two territories. (b) the territory itself between the borders. As in (Vaeira 7:27), “Behold, I will smite all your gevul (border/territory) with frogs,” where the intent is the entire land of Egypt, not merely the border between Egypt and the outside. Therefore, Rashi chose to use the term “metzar” to emphasize that in the parsha dealing with the Land’s borders, the Torah comes to clarify the exact location of the dividing line between Eretz Yisrael and outside it, not the entire territory of the Land.

LIMITLESS POTENTIAL

On a deeper level, Rashi chose the term “metzar” to hint at the time of “Bein HaMetzarim,” the time in which we read about the borders of the Land. In this, Rashi gives a hint and an answer to the well-known question: if G-d gave us the Land, how can exile be possible at all? How can the destruction be possible?

The answer to this is in one word, “metzar”!

Since there is a metzar (border/constraint) to the holiness of the Land, destruction and exile can result from it. Because when the holiness of the Land is complete, when there is no “metzar,” and the holiness of the Land spreads to all lands and to the entire world, there can be no exile or destruction at all; there can be no state of “Bein HaMetzarim” (whose literal meaning is “between the narrow straits”) at all, because there is no Egypt (Mitzrayim, i.e. narrow straits) and no borders to the holiness of the Land and the holiness of G-d!

That covers the negative side of the spectrum, but the way of Chassidic teaching is to see the positive, the good and the virtuous in everything and every situation.

What is the virtue hinted at in the word “metzar”? Is there good contained in this word as well?

The words of the Tzemach Tzedek in his notes on Megillas Eicha are well known, in which he explains the verses of Eicha in a positive light, as lofty blessings. On the words “All her pursuers overtook her bein ha’metzarim (between the narrow straits)” (Eicha 1:3), the Tzemach Tzedek explains that through contemplating how all the worlds are but a single drop, etc., one thereby draws down the aspect of “from the metzar (narrow place) [I called out to G-d].” Accordingly, the true meaning of “bein ha’metzarim” is along the lines of “From the narrow place I called out to G-d, He answered me with the expansiveness of G-d,” the narrowness that brings about true expansiveness, the expanse of G-d’s very essence.

In light of this, the Rebbe explains a wonderful, profound, and innovative interpretation of Rashi’s words. The (Chassidic) difference between “metzar” and “gevul” is: “gevul” symbolizes Hashem’s limited light, the constricted light belonging to the worlds, known as “that which fills all worlds.” “Metzar,” by contrast, symbolizes Hashem’s unlimited light. The only way to reach/“attain” this infinite light is specifically through “calling out from the metzar,” through feeling the utter insignificance and nothingness of the entire chain of creation in comparison to Him.

Therefore Rashi is precise in his language and uses the term “metzar,” to emphasize that it is specifically through the metzar that G-d’s essential expansiveness is revealed. This is the Geula connection of Parshas Masei to the time in which it is read. The parsha teaches us that through feeling the metzar, through calling out from the depths of the heart “there is none comparable to You,” “and we wish to see our King,” through this (and only through this) we will be able to reach the ultimate goal, the true and complete Geula.

Furthermore, one can also learn a practical lesson from the first explanation above. Only by expanding the border of holiness, by adding in all matters of goodness, Torah, and its mitzvos, can the borders of the Land be secured. Not through physical weapons will we secure the borders, and not through a military force will we expand the Promised Land, but rather through the spreading of the Land’s holiness within each and every one of us. Through adding in matters of holiness and modesty, through care in walking the traditional Jewish path, we will bring about that “the Land of Israel will in the future expand into all the lands,” and then there will be no room at all for exile, and the true and complete Geula will come, now mamosh!

TO CONCLUDE WITH A STORY

And let us end with an amazing story of how the natural borders between one land and another brought back a Jew (who had been distant until then) to the borders of holiness. Eitan Antoni, a former U.S. Marine, recounts:

I was stationed in Iraq, a lone Jewish officer among hundreds of Iraqi soldiers in a remote area on the Syrian border. I had to keep my Jewish identity secret.

I remember the loneliness I felt standing at the sand border separating Iraq from Syria, looking out over the desert and dreaming of being in Israel, only a few hundred kilometers away. I thought to myself that I could actually drive to Israel and back in one day and no one would know. So close, yet a completely different world.

As a trainer embedded among 1,500 Iraqi soldiers, I had to hide my identity 24 hours a day. To the Iraqis I trained, I was just another blue-eyed American Christian. My teammates (all nine of them) understood my situation and knew that the fact I was Jewish had to be kept secret. I wasn’t even allowed to have “Jewish” written on my dog tag.

My only moment of comfort was going to our team’s hut on base, stepping behind the open sleeping bag hanging from the ceiling, putting on tefillin and a tallis (which I’d received from the Aleph Institue), and saying the Shema and praying Shacharis. The team members thought it was a strange ritual, but showed understanding and respect, and now and then even some curiosity. I was told that Jewish Marines make up about half a percent of the Marine Corps. True—few, but very proud.

Having grown up as a non-observant Jew in Hollywood, California, I had never even considered putting on tefillin. During a visit to Israel with a youth group, a group of Chabad Chassidim in Yerushalayim offered to help me put on tefillin and say a prayer. Since I was a rebellious teenager at the time, I saw it as a somewhat silly novelty. But when I was in Iraq, in a place where IEDs, roadside bombs, snipers, and firefights were a daily occurrence, and I knew that any day could be my last, I came to appreciate my tefillin and was proud of it.

Although I only put on tefillin during prayer, even after I took them off, I felt that G-d’s presence remained with me.

Maybe that’s why recently, back here in the United States, I’ve started putting them on again.

Good Shabbos!

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