Shelah - The Heschel School

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לח)(‏ strongly about this, standing on the sidelines during the Israel day parade. The belief is that the Jewish people must wait for a clear sing from God that the time to enter the land has arrived. What do you say tom that? 2. God seems to lose God’s temper deeply. Some people think this indicates that God cares about our people deeply—but living with such anger is very difficult. Should God have become so upset? 3. The Torah says that the scouts reported that they saw themselves as grasshoppers in their own eyes once they saw the might of the people in the land of Israel. a. What does that mean to you? b. Why a grasshopper? c. Can you relate to a feeling about yourself in which you feel weaker and less able to do things that really, if you thought about it, you could accomplish? d. What causes a person to feel so small and weak? e. What caused our ancestors to feel this way—after all, they escaped from Egypt successfully, and traveled all that way? f. Is it possible that God had not allowed them to take care of themselves enough, so they felt dependent and child-like? from the commentary by Rashi: ועשו להם ציצית על שם וראיתם אותו כמו מציץ מן החרכים ‏(שיר השירים ב,‏ ט.):‏ And fashion tzitzit. It is called tzitzit because of the word, “metzitz,” which means, “to see,” as in the verse in the Song of Songs, ‘I looked out from in-between the rocks for my beloved….’ וזכרתם את כל מצות ה'.‏ שמנין גימטריא של ציצית חוטין וחמשה קשרים הרי תרי"ג:‏ שש מאות,‏ ושמונה So you will remember all of My mitzvoth. [How will the tzitzit help someone remember mitzvoth?] The numerology of the word, tzitzith equals 600. Then, there are 8 threads on each corner, that equals 608, and then each corner has five knots, which equals 613,[ the total number of mitzvoth in the Torah.] ולא תתורו אחרי לבבכם.‏ כמו ‏ִמתור הארץ.‏ הלב והעינים הם מרגלים לגוף,‏ מסרסרים לו את העבירות,‏ העין רואה,‏ והלב חומד,‏ והגוף עושה את העבירות:‏ So you will not act impulsively [and be disloyal to God.] This word, taturu, is related to the word for scouting, tur/tour the land. [Here is why.]The heart and the eyes (which represent the mind in the Bible) are like scouts for the body. They (the eyes and the heart) 4
ing the body to all sorts of sinful behaviors. The eye notices, the heart desires, and then the body follows and behaves accordingly. Questions for thought and discussion based on the comments of Rashi: 1. Rashi talks about eyes, heart and body. Let’s relate that to thought, feeling and action. a. What is the connection between desiring to do something and doing it? b. What holds us back from doing certain things we might want to do? c. Is it easier to do something we think we should do, even if we do not want to, or to do something we should not do, even though we know we should not? 2. Let’s challenge the Torah in a big way: Rashi is telling us that the Torah has a system for reminding us about mitzvoth. Fine. What if I do not feel like doing a mitzvah? Rashi seems to be saying that, according to the Torah, through the mitzvah of tzitzit, it is better to do a mitzvah even though I do not feel like it this minute, than not to do it at all. Let’s say we are not talking about negative mitzvoth, like murder and theft. Let’s say we are only talking about positive mitzvoth, like tzedakah and Shabbat and prayer. What do you think: what is more important, kavannah or action? Rashi is claiming that the mitzvah of tzitzit shows us that behavior is the bottom line. a. Why would behavior be the bottom line? b. Which statemnent makes better sense to you: A person is what they think, or, A person is what they do! 3. Rashi uses Gematria to interpret the symbolism and the message of the word tzitzit. a. Can you figure out how he spells tzitzit in Hebrew to get the equivalence of 600? b. Look at a tallit. Can you find the five knots and the 8 threads? c. There are two common responses to Gematria. Where do you weigh-in: i. It is a cool code for hidden messages in the Torah ii. It is random 4. Rashi interprets the word tzitz by comparing it to a word with the same root, from a different context (a verse in the Song of Songs). a. Can you defend this method of clarifying the meaning of a word in the bible? b. Can you raise an objection to this method? c. Please do both of these! Mitzvoth in the Parashah. According to the Sefer haHinuch,* there are two positive mitzvoth and one negative mitzvah in parashat shelakh lekha. The two positive commandments are (i) separating a quantity of dough, called, hallah, when baking bread in the land of Israel. Interestingly, this is a mitzvah which depends upon most of the jewish people living in the land of Israel, and which is required only in the land of Israel. However, the rabbis imposed an additional requirement that even outside of the land of Israel, throughout the Diaspora, Jews should separate “hallah” from the dough and recite 5
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Shelah - The Heschel School

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