Paths to Proper Piety
by R. Gidon Rothstein
Parshat Ki Tavo
Aramean Hatred
R. Ya’akov Kamenetzky is sure the Aramean of 26;5 is Lavan, along the lines of what we say in the Haggadah, an Aramean sought to destroy my (fore)father. He is so sure, he wonders why the verse didn’t name Lavan. [While some literalists prefer to identify the Aramean as Ya’akov, a wanderer who went to Egypt, Onkelos agrees withEmet Le-Ya’akov.]
It was all the Arameans, says R. Kamenetzky. When Lavan gathered his fellow citizens for the wedding, they knew the plan to switch Leah for Rachel (a Midrash says), and said nothing to Ya’akov. Who had approached them at the well in a spirit of friendship, calling them achai, my brothers. Ya’akov wanted to be friends, they sided with Lavan in tricking him.
Arami oved avi, for Emet Le-Ya’akov, means the generic Aramean, any random Aramean, was happy to put forefather Ya’akov in a difficult position. [There was a time when this tendency to spot widespread Jew-hatred might have been relegated to a bygone era; sadly, we are in it again.] It also reminds us that complicity is not innocence.
The Newness of Torah
26;16 begins a new section, where Moses tells the Jews Hashem is commanding them to keep the various laws ha-yom ha-zeh, this day. Next chapter, verse nine, Moses again refers to “this day,” while reminding them of their covenant, their special relationship with Hashem.
In both places, Rashi reads the phrase to call us to maintain our sense of novelty and newness in the experience of Torah. I once heard someone point out you can keep Shabbat for the first time only once. For those born to an observant family, the first time is lost in the mists of infancy. Even those who come to it later in life can forget the excitement, trepidation, sense of the moment. It can become routine.
Rashi understands the Torah to want us to strive to maintain the newness of Torah, study and practice, approach each day with the emotional attention and connection of our first time.
Ramification Rather Than Reward
In two different places in the parsha, Ramban and R. Hirsch share much the same idea about how Torah helps us. For Ramban, it was 26;18, where Moshe tells us Hashem has declared us to be His special people, as Hashem has told us, and to keep his mitzvot. Ramban thinks keeping the mitzvot is part of how Hashem treats us well because we are His special people.
The Torah gives us insight other nations do not have into Hashem’s preferences, as it were, ways to do what Hashem wants and therefore be successful. It is an advantage as much as an obligation, a path of life that helps us function better in the world, makes us aware of deep truths of the universe.
R. Samson Raphael Hirsch makes the point when the Torah tells us all the good we will receive should we observe the Torah properly. The phrasing of the blessings piques his interest, especially in 28;2, where the Torah says all theseberachot“will come upon you… and catch you.” If we serve Hashem out of pure motives, he understood the Torah to be saying, only to fulfill God’s Will (not transactionally, for the reward), good fortune will chase us and find us.
By keeping the ethical and social mitzvot, R. Hirsch says, our family and community lives will flourish; keeping the land, agriculture, and livestock mitzvot leads to better outcomes in all those contexts. Dedicated service of God has real-world impact.
He has more examples, I’ll restrict myself to one. The Torah speaks of the blessing in the city before the one in the fields. Many assume economic success (the fields) is what enhances our lives in the city, says R. Hirsch; the Torah wants us to know it is the reverse, acting ethically as individuals and communities, will be why we see blessings in the fields.
For Ramban, R. Hirsch, and many others, reward isn’t candy God gives for being good boys and girls. It’s Hashem having taught us how the world works, and when we live in alignment with the world’s paths and patterns, all the rest falls into place, better than we arrange it on our own.
Worshipping Custom
Verse 28;14 seems pretty straightforward, making Sforno’s view stand out. The verse calls for us not to stray from what Moshe is commanding, to follow other gods and serve them. Perhaps Sforno struggled with the disjunct between the first and second half: there are many ways to stray from the Torah, yet the verse jumps to following other gods.
He says “other gods” includes people who abandon mitzvot to follow received behaviors of the past (he uses a phrase from Yeshayahu, mitzvat anashim melumadah, a learned practice; my teacher, Professor Twersky, a”h, was very alert to the phrase, particularly Rambam’s use of it to call out those who observe religion without thought or attention). For Sforno, people do this because their ancestors taught them to, not because it is a way to serve God.
[I assume he is reacting to his contemporaries, because it is so far from obvious in the text. To consider his point, imagine if a group of people had a custom, and a Torah scholar or prophet told them this was not what God wanted, and they didn’t care, because this is their custom. I don’t need to imagine it, because the current issue of Tradition has a well-done article by R. Shimon Altshul, laying out the history of kaddish recitation, a custom with many examples of exactly this, people insisting on custom in the face of what Torah scholars said.]
Sforno adds “there is no ‘to follow other gods’ greater than this,” a statement shocking in its truth. To prioritize our ancestors’ practices over what God has told us we should do is to place those people and their customs above God, God forbid, the very definition of idolatry. Of course, people who do it would deny it, would say it is obviously what God wants, because that’s what we received from our ancestors. Or some other explanation.
Sforno disagrees.
What Can’t Be Reason For Punishment
Near the end of the tochachah, Devarim 28;58-59, Moshe warns of extraordinary punishments if we are not careful to observe the entire Torah. Kli Yakar cannot accept that Moshe would set such a high standard; he uses a beautiful phrase of R. Yochanan’s, Ketubbot 111b, lo neicha le-marayhu, their Master is not pleased, that you should say such a thing. It demands too much, puts us on the hook for terrible consequences for the smallest misstep.
In addition, I skipped a phrase from verse 58. After the Torah says to keep all the mitzvot, it says “that you may fear this glorious and fearful Name,” Hashem. Why stick that in, asks Kli Yakar, if the verse was focused on lack of observance?
One more question guides him to his answer. Shabbat 138b infers from the word ve-hifla that the Jewish people would one day lose contact with the wisdom of the Torah, because Yeshayahu 29;14 uses the same root when it says ve-avdah chochmat chachamav, a phrase Kli Yakar will investigate but for now can mean, the wisdom of its wise men will be lost.
A challenging idea, Hashem would deny wisdom, abandon the nation to the fate of their sins.
Sometimes Observance Itself Is Problematic
He solution lies in a counterintuitive assertion: observance for ulterior motives, such as to get some good or out of fear of human being(s), causes a chillul Hashem (he says beli safek, without a doubt!), and Hashem punishes such people for their evil thoughts, especially because others who see this will complain about Hashem.
He moves on to the consequences, but does not explain how he can say this, when he knows, no less than we do, mi-toch shelo lishmah ba lishmah, the Gemara said observance builds on itself and leads us to do it for its own sake. [I think he would say he means actively wrong motives, along the lines of how Tosafot explained Talmudic passages firmly opposed to lo lishmah.
Tosafot says this is one who learns le-kanter, to find ways to attack the system or to prove other Torah scholars wrong. Kli Yakar has expanded that category considerably, without explanation. I think he means these people who observe for external reasons also do not observe perfectly, and end up acting in ways embarrassing to Torah and, as it were, to Hashem.]
To me, he, too, seems to be reacting to people of his time, who seem observant, but lack fear of God. The flaws and lacks creep into their observance, and then reflect badly on the Torah, and are therefore a chillul Hashem.
Don’t Teach!
In such times, Torah scholars should withdraw from teaching, he says, an idea that sounds foreign to us yet has support in Berachot 63a: in a generation where Torah is not beloved, keep your Torah to yourself. He notes the Gemara doesn’t say a generation that does not learn Torah, it says it is not dear to them.
Because they are learning for other reasons, Kli Yakar is sure. If their observance (and learning) is purely cultural, social, political, or some other non-Torah value, if it lacks the fear of God essential to the system, more knowledge is a detriment. Knowledge isn’t the value, knowledge shaped by fear of God is the value.
More, he believes Hashem does not welcome their observance (!), and will cause them to lose their Torah. Nor can the Torah teacher turn it another way, says Kli Yakar, because there is no way to effect internal change in such people [another idea the many successful kiruv workers of our time would dispute].
Withholding knowledge is the solution in Yeshayahu, the wisdom of its wise people will be lost. Not that they will lose it, the populace will, because better to leave them to struggle in the dark of ignorance than be taught Torah they will misuse, like Kli Yakar’s generation (he says).
Paths to Goodness
Lavan’s compatriots weren’t even trying to be good, were happy to join his deception of Ya’akov. For the rest of us, our parsha points to ways we can get closer and farther from what we seek, a relationship with God. Follow the Torah out of fear of God, with the joy and excitement as if it were the first day, knowing the reward is less significant than this being the right way to live in the world God created. And not because it’s what our ancestors did.
Other Comments We Saw on This Parsha:
Ramban, Devarim 26;3, Ve-ta’am el ha-kohen
Ramban, Devarim 26;3, Higgadeti ha-yom
Ha’amek Davar, Devarim 26;3, El ha-kohen
Onkelos, Devarim 26;5, Arami oved avi
Rashi, Devarim 26;5, Arami oved avi
Meshech Chochmah, Devarim 26;11, Ve-samachta
R. David Tzvi Hoffmann,Devarim26;11, Ve-samachta
Meshech Chochmah, Devarim 26;16, Hashkifah
Ramban, Devarim 26;17, whole verse
Ramban, Devarim 27;2, Ve-ta’am ki gilah
Malbim, Devarim 27;9, Va-yedabber Moshe
Rashi, Devarim 27;12, Le-varech et ha-am
Or HaChayim, Devarim 27;16, Arur
Ramban, Devarim 27;26, Asher lo yakim
Torat Moshe, Devarim 27;26, Asher lo Yakim
Onkelos, Devarim 28;2 and 28;15, ve-hisigukha
Onkelos, Devarim 28;13 and 44, le-rosh ve-lo le-zanav
Onkelos, Devarim 28;54 and 56, eshet cheiko, ish cheikah
Onkelos, Devarim 28;32, ve-kalot aleihem
Ramban, Devarim 28; 42, Ha-tzelatzal
Meshech Chochmah, Devarim 28;47, Tachat
Rashi, Devarim 28;67, Ba- boker
Ha-Ketav Ve-Ha-Kabbalah, Devarim 28;68, Ba-oniyot
Rashi, Devarim 29;3, Ad ha-yom
Ibn Ezra, Devarim 29;3, Lev la-da’at
Ramban, Devarim 29;5, Lechem lo achaltem