Among the numerous preparations for Rosh HaShanah and the Shabbat Shuvah that immediately follows Rosh HaShanah has been the preparation of food. There is lots of food. This of course only means two inevitabilities. There will be a lot of eating and there will be a lot of weight gained. My kids will poke fun, my wife will give me a look if and when I put another helping of whatever into my mouth. Sure I will exercise next week. However over the three day Holiday and Shabbat, while I may have become more spiritually fit, and more spiritually tight and fat free; the same cannot be said of physical realm. After three days of praying, and eating, socializing and sleeping, I have become physically soft and yes my kids would say fat.
This week's Parsha is Haazinu. This is the song that God had commanded Moshe to write at the end of the previous Parsha, Va'Yeileich. This song recounts the trials and tribulations that B'nai Yisroel experienced from the moment they left Egypt until the day of Moshe's death. The song mentions God's giving B'nai Yisroel Torah due to the merits of its ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The song recounts B'nai Yisroel's neglect in maintaining its covenantal obligations. The song recounts God's anger, and B'nai Yisroel's T'shuvah- return to God. The song also instructs B'nai Yisroel to learn from their parents and ancestors and then to pass these lessons down to the next generation. In singing of the cyclical nature of B'nai Yisroel's relationship to God, Moshe sings: Va'Yishman Y'shurun Ba'Yivat Shmantah Avitah Kasitah Va'Yitosh Elohah Asahu Va'Nabel Tsur Y'Shu'ato-Jeshrun became fat and kicked. You became fat, you became thick, you became corpulent- and it deserted God its Maker, and was contemptuous of the Rock of its salvation (Deut.32:15). Yeshurun is a reference to B'nai Yisroel. Yeshurun means the "upright". Moshe is alluding to B'nai Yiroel's uprightness defined by fulfilling its covenantal obligations. For an individual to remain upright, nothing can be weighing him/her down. So when the upright get fat, an allusion to comfort, the upright lean over. Moshe explains that when B'nai Yisroel became self-satisfied, comfortable, and fat, they drifted from their covenantal obligations. Comfort and contentment can lead to softness or fatness.
During this time of year, and especially on this Shabbat, the Shabbat after Rosh Hashannah, the Shabbat known as Shabbat Shuvah (Shabbat of Return), these verses ring true. We must always fight against becoming spiritually content, perhaps even fat. We need to guard against becoming spiritually soft and maybe we even spiritually apathetic. Yet it is precisely the point that we recognize that fact. As we are in the Aseret Yamei Tshuva, the Ten days of Repentance, and we seek forgiveness from our fellow man, we recognize that we can no longer rest on our spiritual laurels, we cannot assume that we are forgiven simply because we are who we are. We must trim the fat, we should be a little uncomfortable, we should be a little unsure. We should have something to prove to our family, our friends, God and ourselves. We should want to be to stand spiritually upright. We should want to seek forgiveness and we should desire to improve ourselves, for our sake, our children's sake and our community's sake. On this Shabbat, Shabbat let us have the strength to cut away the fat. Let us have strength enough not to succumb to comforts so that our perspectives and values are lost. Let us return to being "stand up" people and behaving like a mentsche for our sake and the sake of our children
Peace,
Rav Yitz
No comments:
Post a Comment