Devarim/Tisha B'AV

The Torah starts out ספר דברים by saying אלה הדברים אשר דבר משה, these are the words that Moshe spoke instead of the usual וידבר משה. Then the posuk  goes on to list several of the places where the Jews angered 'ה

Rashi explains that Moshe was trying to admonish them before his death & was alluding to all the times that they angered 'ה along the way. The reason he didn't explicitly recount their wrongdoings & just alluded to them, was because of כבודן של ישראל, he didn't want to embarrass  כלל ישראל.   

The sins we're talking about were serious ones, like the מרגלים for which they wandered in the desert for 40years, & the sin of the עגל for which we still suffer from today. Every calamity that befalls us is in some way a punishment for the sin of the golden calf. Still, Moshe didn't explicitly say the sins in order not to embarrass them. This, says הגר"ח שמולאביץ, shows us how careful we need to be with someone else's feelings.

Don't think that this is only because it was the whole nation, for even the honor of one person is of utmost importance to 'ה. The gemara tells us that the shame suffered by Bar Kamtza upon being publicly thrown out of a banquet caused 'ה to aid him in destroying the בית המקדש.

R' Eliezer said regarding this story, "look how great the power of embarrassment is! For 'ה even helped Bar Kamtza who was of lowly stature retaliate for his embarrassment & burnt the בית המקדש, exiling the Jewish people. So we see that even for one person's embarrassment untold suffering comes to the world.  

There's a story told about ר' אביגדור הלברשטם, who once came to a town for שבת, & was put up in the home of one of the distinguished townspeople. As was custom, the serving dish was placed before him to take, & then to be passed to the rest of the people. However, instead of just taking a little, he finished the entire bowl. He then asked if there was more & finished that too. No one understood what was going on, especially since he usually ate very little.

After they left the town, he explained that when he took the first bite there was a foul taste, & he realized that the wife accidentally used vinegar instead of oil. In order not to embarrass this woman, he ate all the food.

How come later on in the parsha Moshe seemingly has a change of heart, & explicitly goes through each sin in detail.  How can we learn not to embarrass from the first posuk where he alludes to the sins, when a little while later he recounts each one? What happened to not embarrassing anyone?

The שפתי חכמים answers that in the first posuk when he alludes to the sins, he's talking about all the sins they did. That has to be done with a hint for to say them all at once would be embarrassing. However, later on when he relates one at a time, there's no embarrassment for אין צדיק בארץ אשר יעשה טוב ולא יחטא, there's no righteous man in the land that only does good & doesn't sin. Therefore, to be rebuked for one sin is normal & there's no embarrassment, as opposed to when it's a lot of sins all together. That's why here, Moshe just alluded to them.

Why bother alluding to them in the first place? Why wouldn't he just go through them one at a time & avoid any possible embarrassment the hinting could cause?

Perhaps it's to teach us something. Every year on תשעה באב we are told about all the sins that were committed which in turn led to the destruction of the בית המקדש. We are told that since משיח hasn't come we're still doing the same sins. For most people that's a little overwhelming & therefore nothing changes. When there's so much to work on, nothing gets done.

What Moshe is trying to tell us is not to be daunted by all the sins that the בית המקדש was destroyed for. We should just focus on making one thing better; take one thing at a time.

Maybe that one thing should be what the Torah is teaching us here; to avoid at all costs anything that might embarrass someone. If we're careful about that then we're one step closer to rebuilding the בית המקדש in our day!

Mattos / Masei

As they near the land on the other side of the Jordan, the tribes of ראובן & גד ask Moshe for that land, instead of their rightful inheritance in the land of Israel.        
Moshe gets angry & says, האחיכם יבאו למלחמה ואתם תשבו פה "Shall your brothers go out to battle while you settle here?" Moshe goes on to admonish them that they're potentially destroying the moral of the people. He says, this is what your fathers did when they sent the spies. He then continues to recount all the calamities that befell the people because of the spies.
Since they had no intention of not fighting together with their brothers, & even offered to lead them in battle, why would they let Moshe continue to rebuke them & not say right away that they were going to lead the fighting?

There's a story told about the Sfas Emes when he was a young man. One night he learned through the night with his friend, davened at dawn, then lay down to rest for a little before his morning seder with his grandfather the Chidushei Harim. He overslept & came a little late. Immediately his grandfather gave him a lengthy lecture about the value of time. When the young Sfas Emes made no attempt to excuse himself, & just took the criticism without comment, his friend asked, why didn't you tell your grandfather why you were late? Tell him we were up all night learning. He replied incredulously, "And miss out on a musser shmuz from my grandfather?"

The Sfas Emes took out a chumash & showed his friend this story, & asked him why didn't the tribes of ראובן & גד stop Moshe's rebuke right away? He answered, because they wanted the rebuke from their rebbi. Sometimes even if you don't deserve it, a little musser can't hurt.  
As it says in אורחות חיים לרא"ש , rejoice when you hear rebuke like you found a great treasure. Rebuke a wise man & he will love you.

Now that might explain why the tribes of ראובן & גד didn't stop the rebuke, but why was Moshe so harsh on them? Why didn't he give them a chance to explain? They never said they weren't going to fight, & he did give them the land so there was obviously some merit to their request.    

Rav Dessler explains that Moshe was upset because their priorities were messed up. They saw the land & were more concerned with their livestock than their families. They were willing to forgo their spiritual well being living with the rest of כלל ישראל just for the sake of their material needs.

It's interesting to note that originally only the tribes of ראובן & גד  came to Moshe requesting the Transjordan. However, when he gave them the land, half the shevet of מנשה was suddenly included. How did they get involved?

Even after moshe got upset & admonished the בני גד and בני ראובן, they continued to have their priorities messed up & said we'll build pens for our flock & then homes for our families. They were still putting their possessions before their families. Moshe saw that they didn't get the message, so he sent half of מנשה, who were great torah scholars, along with them to mentor & teach them so that maybe they would learn to listen to rebuke & straighten out their priorities.   

We have to take a lesson from them, to put our families first, & not let anything come before them. We should be able to listen to others who might know better, and be able to take rebuke & mend our ways. We have to have our priorities straight & not sacrifice our spiritual pursuits for material ones, enabling us to grow in the service of 'ה!

pinchas

The Torah describes the process for the division of the land among the Jewish people as inheritance based on who came out of Mitzraim. The daughters of צלפחד came to Moshe & said, “why should our father’s name be lost from his family because he has no son? Give us a possession amongst our father’s brothers. When Moshe asked 'ה what do to, 'ה answered, “they have spoken well; give them an inheritance amongst their father’s brothers.” Then the Torah proceeds to teach the laws of inheritance. Rashi says that the parsha regarding the laws of inheritance should have been given to Moshe just like the rest of the Torah. Because the בנות צלפחד were deemed worthy, it was written through them. אשרי אדם שהקב"ה מודה לדבריו , praiseworthy is the one with whose words 'ה agrees.   We see a stark contrast to Moshe's own sons later on in the parsha. When 'ה tells Moshe to start preparing for his own death, Moshe’s first concern is that the Jews have a leader to take his place & lead them. Moshe asks 'ה to appoint a leader, about which Rashi explains the words 'יפקד ה, that 'ה should appoint, that Moshe's intention was to pass along his position of leadership to his son. He based this hope on Hashem’s decision regarding the בנות צלפחד . Hashem though, said “no, your position is going to Yehoshua.” What was so special about Yehoshua that he surpassed Moshe's own son? When Moshe was requesting the new leader he said he wanted someone אשר יצא לפניהם ואשר יבא לפניהם ואשר יוציאם ואשר יביאם , “who shall go out before them and come in before them, who shall take them out and who shall bring them in.” ר' משה מנדל asks why the double lashon? An interesting explanation is offered by ר' ישראל סלנט on the saying of פני הדור כפני הכלב “the face of the generation is like the face of the dog”; the normal action of a dog is that it runs ahead of its master so it appears as if the dog is leading the master. However, when the dog comes to a turn in the road, it waits to see which way the master turns & then continues to run in that direction. At that point it’s obvious who the master is & who's leading whom. This is what Chazal say is going to happen at the time of משיח: the פני הדור, the leaders, will be like פני הכלב; they will look like they're leading but will really be looking back to see how the people want them to behave. This says ר' משה מנדל is why the Torah used the double lashon stressing the need of the leader to be someone who was going to lead and always be before the people leading & not looking back to see if they approve. This was Yehoshua. When 'ה denies Moshe’s request for his son to take over, He says the reason is that Yehoshua should be rewarded for his service of לא ימיש מתוך האהל,” he would not depart from within the tent.” On the surface, this means that he never left Moshe’s side. Perhaps there is an alternative explanation. He never departed from the tent means that he would never depart from the teachings that were taught in the tent no matter whether he had public approval or not. Therefore he was the one who was chosen to lead the people. This teaches us that a person has the ability to make his own destiny. From the בנות צלפחד whose father was killed because of his sins & yet they still rose to the  highest level of having 'ה admitting to their words to Moshe’s sons, whose father was the greatest leader of all time, yet they didn't merit being his successor, which  teaches us that no matter the level of a person’s situation, from the highest to the lowest, we all choose our own destiny. Since the choice is ours, we need to make it a good one!

balak

When בלעם blesses the בני ישראל he says, “ לא הביט און ביעקב ולא ראה עמל בישראל He perceived no iniquity in Jacob and saw no burdensome work(toil) in the Jewish people. The לקח טוב brings the אור החיים הקדוש who explains this blessing to mean that even though the righteous among us are constantly doing mitzvos & toiling in Torah, they do not feel like they are working at all. Rather, it's like someone in the midst of a big deal who's making millions of dollars and doesn't even realize he's working hard; he's enjoying every moment. So, too, the בני ישראל, when they are involved in Torah, they enjoy themselves & don’t feel like they are working. To add to this concept, הגר"י ניימן brings the Gemara that tells us the story of ריש לקיש, who saw ר' יוחנן standing across the river. He wanted to get close to him, so he jumped across the river in one jump. When ר' יוחנן saw his strength, he said, “you should use your strength for Torah”. He made a deal with ריש לקיש that if he leaves his life of banditry & comes to live a life of Torah, ר' יוחנן would give him his sister as a wife. ריש לקיש agrees, but, when he tries to jump back over the river, he can't. Now, had ריש לקיש already started learning & then couldn't jump over, this inability would make sense because Torah study weakens one's strength. However, here he didn't even start learning; he just agreed to start. Why was he not able to jump the river? Answers ר' ניימן that ריש לקיש still had the strength; however, what he didn't have anymore was the drive or the desire. Once he accepted upon himself the study of Torah, being able to jump across the river wasn't important anymore. Once it lost its importance, he lost the ability to do it. Once a person has no desire or drive for something, it becomes impossible to do. The opposite is also true. If a person has a desire for something & wants to do it, then, even if by nature he doesn't have the strength, he can overcome that by sheer desire & accomplish. How can we get to this level of enjoyment in Torah? Where does one get this desire to learn for hours on end & not feel the time go by? Perhaps the most famous of the ברכות that בלעם gave us is מה טבו אהליך. Rashi interprets it to mean that בלעם saw that the Jews’ entrances weren't facing one another. הגרא"ז מלצר explains a little differently, and says that in order for בלעם to curse the Jews he had to find a sin that everyone was doing. In order for the curse to take effect, it needed an opening to be able to get in. However, even though there were sinners in כלל ישראל, there was no one sin that everyone was doing. One person was a thief, one spoke lashon hara, & yet another was taking bribes. Although these are openings for the curse to take effect, since they all weren't doing them, the curse couldn't take effect. This is why he said מה טבו אהליך, that they're openings were not aligned, because he couldn't find an opening for the curse to take effect since all their sins were different. Maybe we could use this logic to understand how we could get enjoyment out of our learning. Just as each person sins differently & has certain things that he enjoys & will sin with, so too by learning. If each person would learn something that he finds interesting, he could get to enjoy it, One should not just try one thing & say, "hey, this isn't for me". The אור החיים הקדוש even says on this posuk of מה טבו אהליך that it's referring to those who set aside set times to learn every day & that could be why there's a חייב to learn at least something morning & night. If the first thing you try doesn't interest you, one has to try again until you find something that does. Once you find your niche, the desire will intensify enabling one to reach previously insurmountable heights & continue to grow in the service of 'ה!