First, a joke. A Breslever and Luvavitcher Chosid came to the heavenly court at the same time and for whatever reasons were both sent to Gehenom. Immediately the Breslever chasid started shouting, Rebbe Nachman save me, Rebbe Nachman save me! And lo and behold, Rebbe Nachman appears, grabs his chasid's payos and lifts him out of Gehenom straight into Gan Eden, Paradise. (It is a tradition in Breslev that if you follow Rabbi Nachman's directives (which includes having long payot, side locks) he will save you from having to go to Gehenom.) The Luvavitcher chasid sees this and also starts shouting, Rebbe save me, Rebbe save me! and lo and behold, the Lubavitcher Rebbe appears but instead of lifting him out he says, If you did come here then it must mean you have a mission here. Open "Chabad House Gehenom"! (It is a principle in Chabad Chassidut that G-d gives us each situation for us to make it better.)

In this week's Torah portion we read about the dividing of the land among the different tribes. The process in which the land was divided is very interesting. One verse says (26/54), "to the larger (tribe) give a larger portion, to the smaller (tribe) less". Here the verse is telling us to give according to the population. Bigger tribes get more land and smaller tribes get less. But in the next verse (26/55) it says, "By lottery you should divide the land". What actually happened was that all the names of the tribes were in one box and all of the divided portions of the land in another box and each time a name of one of the tribes was drawn a random portion of land was also drawn. And there was a miracle! The land sizes matched the sizes of the tribes!

At first glance, this is apparently a pretty illogical way to divide up the land. If you are supposed to do the division according to the size of each tribe, why do you need the lottery? And if you have the lottery then why is there a verse about doing the division according to size? With a lottery, you just accept however it comes out.

The Torah is teaching us that while it is imperative that a person live his life according to human logic and common sense, we also have to know that every step we take is being directed from heaven. We think that we chose where we will live, who we will marry, what type of work we will do and even where to take our vacations, but the Torah comes and tells us, that on top of our intellect, there is the divine lottery and it is this lottery that is actually directing us. A person always thinks they are going somewhere or doing something because they wanted to go there or do it. The truth is we are directed there from heaven because there is where our mission in life is, that is your 'portion of the land' that you have to change for the better, that is where your mission is. Yes, we use our intellect to make our decisions. But on a deeper level, our job is to open our eyes and use our intellect to decide why this is my destination and what is the purpose that I was brought to this place for.

We see a similar teaching with the word tzedakah. The Hebrew word tzedakah, which usually is translated as charity, actually means righteousness. The reason why G-d gave us discretionary income was not because G-d likes us but because he WANTED US TO GIVE IT AWAY! The reason why G-d gave it to us is so we will decide to where, to which person or project the money should go.

An observant couple living in Minnesota (where there is a tiny observant Jewish community) wrote to the Rebbe requesting his advice as to whether they should move to New York or stay in Minneapolis. "It's much easier to live in a religious Jewish life in New York", they wrote. The Rebbe advised them to remain in Minneapolis, because, "New York has many observant Jews already, in Minneapolis your presence will have a much greater impact".
(adapted from Mamtak L'Shabbat)

Shabbat Shalom, Shaul

(for a free weekly email subscription, click here)
For last year's essay by Rabbi Leiter on this week's Reading, see the archive.