Mattos / massei

The beginning of our parsha states the laws of vows:  אִישׁ כִּי יִדֹּר נֶדֶר לה’ אוֹ הִשָּׁבַע שְׁבֻעָה לֶאְסֹר אִסָּר עַל נַפְשׁוֹ לֹא יַחֵל דְּבָרוֹ כְּכָל הַיֹּצֵא מִפִּיו יַעֲשֶׂה: "If a man makes a vow to Hashem or makes an oath to prohibit himself, he shall not violate his word; according to whatever came out of his mouth, he shall do." Rashi interprets לֹא יַחֵל דְּבָרוֹ, like לֹא יְחַלֵּל דְּבָרוֹ “he shall not profane his word,” meaning he shall not treat his word as being unholy. 

What does this mean? What makes a word holy? The חיד”א explains that a person should view all his mundane activities as a means to have the strength to do the mitzvos. If one does that, then all his mundane activities are actually holy. His eating, sleeping, working are all considered mitzvos, for they are all just to enable him to do the mitzvos. A person who fulfills this obligation has the title of tzadik, on whom Hashem said, מושל באדם צדיק מושל יראה אלקים, meaning: I rule over man, who rules over Me; the tzadik, for I make a decree and the tzadik annuls it. This is what the posuk means, לא יחל דברו, a person who doesn't profane his words.  Rather, all his words are for the sake of heaven; then ככל היוצא מפיו יעשה, then Hashem says whatever comes out of his mouth I will do. צדיק גוזר והקב”ה מקיים, the tzadik decrees and Hashem fulfills. 

Because the גר”א  had something bothering him in his throat, his son went to call the doctor to see what was wrong. The doctor looked in his throat and saw a wart that was full of pus and said that it must be dissected to be able to remove it.

There was a woman in the town who knew an incantation that would heal the sick. They told the גר”א, about her and he agreed to see her. When she came to him, he wouldn’t let her say her incantation until he was sure that it was from a holy source and not from the forces of evil, so he asked her what it was and where it came from. She told him that when she was young, she was widowed with small children and no means of support. One night, when there was no food for her to give her children, she went in the middle of the night to the bais medrash to cry her heart out to Hashem. She opened the aron kodesh and poured her heart out. When she finished crying, she heard a heavenly voice that told her to start saying incantations to heal people, from which she would make a living. She asked what she should say. The voice answered her to ask for a drink, and after she drank, she should whisper the bracha of borai nefashos over the sick person. She went home and told people that she could heal the sick. It worked, so she was able to support herself all these years.

When the גר”א heard this story he laughed so hard that the wart shot out of his mouth and he was healed. Sometime later he explained, “the night she was talking about I was learning in the bais medrash behind the bima. In the middle of the night, I heard this woman crying and I couldn't concentrate so I had to say something to her to calm her down. I'm the one who told her to say that incantation just to calm her down." This demonstrates that someone like the גר”א , whose words were always for the sake of heaven, always had his words fulfilled by heaven  even when he had said something just to calm a woman down. 

The second parsha we read tells us about all the travels of the Jews in the desert, the forty two different stops they made along the way. The רבי מסקולן says that this parsha is always read during the three weeks in which we remember the exile from Israel, to teach us that,  just as all those travels in the desert were for the sole purpose of getting us into the land, we have to know that all journeys we have to go through in this long and bitter exile are only for the sole purpose of bringing us back to the land for good.

Perhaps we could take the lesson from the parsha of vows to be careful with what comes out of our mouths and try to have all our words for the sake of heaven, so that we will be much closer to having our prayers answered and being brought back into our land!