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BEGIN WITH A GRIN

Three patients in a mental facility decide to run away through the keyhole.

The first runs, leaps, hits the door and falls.

The second runs, leaps, hit the door and falls.

The third approaches the door, examines it, and says, “No wonder they failed. The key is blocking the hole.”

EVEN A CHILD KNOWS

Parshas Vaeschanan begins with Moshe’s prayer to be allowed into the land. He not only prays, he not only requests, but he pleads, not once but 515 times.

What is the difference between tefilla, techina (not the condiment) and chanina?

Rashi explains that chanun refers to a freebie. Moshe was asking to enter the land for free, not because of his holy service, not because of his leadership of the Jewish people for forty years, not because it says about him, “Throughout My palace, he is trustworthy,” but like a pauper who stands in the doorway and pleads for a piece of bread.

The question which even a ben chameish l’mikra will ask is: Everyone understands that in life there is order, from the easy to the hard, from the small to the big. First, we ask based on what’s coming to us and if that doesn’t help, then we ask for a handout, even if we don’t deserve it. Why did Moshe start out by pleading?

This question can also be asked about the haftorah. This Shabbos, we begin the series of haftoras known as the “seven of consolation” for the destruction and exile. Our Sages note the doubling at the beginning of this haftora, “Nachamu, nachamu, ami” that G-d tells the prophets to console the Jewish people with a double consolation.

This is also not understandable. The Tosafos (Megilla 31b) say, “The way of consolation is to continuously progress and become more advanced.” You start consoling slowly, bit by bit. No one goes to a mourner’s house with techno music and loudspeakers and starts to dance. So, why here, right after Tisha B’Av, after the greatest descent known to the Jewish people in history, do we start with a double consolation? Why do we jump ahead from one extreme to another?

This question, on the parsha and the haftora, is a practical one in our times. We are in the ikvesa d’meshicha, the heel of Jewish history, a very lowly and degraded generation. How can it be that in this generation the true and complete Geula will arrive in an instant?  What about some emotional preparation, perhaps along the lines of a Geula in stages? Step one, then step two, step three (and I’m not referring to some kind of deal or war, if you know what I mean…). Why jump ahead in a split second?

The Rebbe explains the mystery. All Jewish sons and daughters are descendants of Avrohom, Yitzchok and Yaakov. Furthermore, a Jew is the son of the King of kings, HKB”H, and not just a son but the oldest son and the only son! Therefore, even in the most degraded situation, when a Jew is on the lowest spiritual level and his spiritual service is no more than on the level of “heels,” he asks for an incomparably great reward and he not only asks for it but he really deserves it!

Not only does the ben chameish l’mikra understand this; he lives it! The nature of children is they want everything that is good (or, at least, what seems good to them) and if they don’t get it, what happens? They try to take it on their own without any calculations, just like Moshe!

[Obviously, we need to train the child not to do this but to ask and wait, but that is the nature of a child.]

BE A PRECOCIOUS CHILD

The Jewish people are children, “naar Yisrael (which is why) and I love him!”

Therefore, Rashi, in his first explanation, which is closest to the literal reading of the verses, explains that the word, “vaeschanan” refers to something freebie, without even mentioning that the meaning of the word is to ask or request, because when speaking about a Jew, every Jew senses that first off, everything that is good is coming to him, and after that we’ll talk about request, prayer, and the other “ten words for prayer.”

This is alluded to in Moshe’s prayer. He starts his plea with the words, “You began to show Your servant.” Chassidus explains that Moshe meant to say, “You Yourself are the one who began” (the wording of the Alter Rebbe in Likutei Torah in this parsha). That means that Moshe did not start with the mystical intentions of holy names, he did not try to invoke mystical unification of divine forces, he did not mention G-d’s 72- or 45- or 63-letter name. He turned right to the source, straight to G-d himself, His very essence, which has no name aside from, “You (began)!”

The ben chameish l’mikra understands this too, as in the famous saying (in the name of one of the Rishonim), “I pray according to the consciousness of this child,” and not to holy names and supernal unifications, and not to sefiros and mystical lights, not to levels and spiritual worlds, but according to the consciousness of a child, straight to G-d himself!

This is also the answer to the question we asked about the haftora. True, we are after Tisha B’Av, in a lowly state, and we need to start “picking up the pieces” and start over again. However, we need to remember that the inner, essential connection between G-d and the Jewish people is always complete, in every time and place, even in a time (and state) of destruction and exile. Therefore, even in the lowest state, we need to shoot for the top and begin with a “double consolation!”

What does this say to us in our daily lives? What are the practical ramifications from this way of life which the Rebbe shows us, the way of Moshe and the story of the haftora? In other words, how do we shoot for the top?

The Rebbe provides a simple, practical example in chinuch from which everyone can internalize things for themselves. Even when a Jew is on a low spiritual level in serving G-d, he starts with hiddur mitzva; he doesn’t suffice with fulfilling his obligation; he is unwilling to consider “bidieved,” he wants to fulfill the mitzva like the greatest of the great.

For example, the mitzva of tefillin (mentioned in our parsha). In earlier generations, they didn’t put on Rabeinu Tam tefillin until after marriage for reasons having to do with the purity of the body. In our generation, the custom spread (and the Rebbe who greatly pushed it) to start putting on Rabeinu Tam tefillin at the same time as Rashi tefillin, two months before the bar mitzva!

As for those who are older, 15 Av falls out this week about which the Gemara says, “from now on whoever adds will be added to him,” referring to “adding the nights to the days to engage in Torah study.” The opportunity should be taken to jump ahead and not wait until we are worthy or we have the time, but to make good resolutions about a concrete addition to Torah study, and immediately ask G-d for the true and complete Geula.

TO CONCLUDE WITH A STORY

We will end with a story that highlights the approach of jumping ahead when it comes to chinuch. The story is told about Rabbi Yisrael of Ruzhin that when his son, Dovid Moshe, was thirty days old (he later became the first Admor of Chortkov) his father put a tallis koton on him.

One day, Dovid Moshe cried nonstop and his mother was unable to calm him down. She became very worried lest the child be sick and in her fright she went to her husband and told him what was going on. He calmed her and said matter-of-factly, “It’s probably because they forgot to put the tzitzis on our Dovid Moshe that he already became used to.”

Indeed, when the rebbetzin put on his tzitzis, the baby calmed down. From then on, they called him “the tzitzis Jew.”

Even a month-old baby can sense that without tzitzis/tefillin/Torah and mitzvos, the situation is intolerable…

Good Shabbos!

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