Weekly Reading Insights: Mattot 5779

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From a traditional Jewish perspective the whole idea of a neder-a vow that limits one's involvement with a physical activity or thing-has two opposite Torah positions. On the one hand, a neder is something negative. "The Torah already forbids…so many things, and you want to prohibit even more?" On the other hand, our sages have said that vows are a vehicle for keeping one's worldly desires at a distance. In other words, a limiting vow can help a person to sanctify themselves by separating them from the desires and temptations of the physical world.

These apparently contradictory views can be reconciled by the explanation that the Torah is describing different methods of behavior for different types of people. For a person who is balanced, whose behavior is appropriate and proper, the Torah's position is that what the Torah has forbidden is enough. It is even deemed inappropriate for such a person to make a neder limiting his or her involvement in the world because added limitation prevents him from purifying and elevating physical things in his personal environment. For someone whose behavior is inappropriate, where there is a certain risk that the physical world will drag him or her down to even more forbidden behavior, limiting involvement in the physical world is a positive and elevating thing-like a reformed alcoholic who demands of themselves total abstinence from any alcohol.

It is apparent from the above that vows are not a goal in and of themselves; rather they are a shield for those who are weak and vulnerable. The true goal is to constantly work to get to a more elevated position where one can abolish an existing vow, and even to where no such self-imposed limits are required at all. That person is so attached to the Divine, and their vision is so clear, they are not degraded and drawn after physical desires at all. They will automatically use the physical part of the world, even the pleasurable and possibly intoxicating aspects of it, in a G-d fearing and "sake-of-heaven" way.

This is the inner intention of the verse in our Torah portion (30/3): "A person who vows a vow… should not profane his speech." The simple meaning is that one should not profane one's speech by not fulfilling one's oath. On a deeper level, the word for "speech," ,can also refer to possessions, things. A person who swears an oath does so in order that he should not profane the physical things around him. A person's purpose in this world is to insist that those physical things that he is involved with and responsible for are not only not degraded by our misuse, but also that they are sanctified and elevated. This verse empowers us and is a conduit of G-dly strength for each of us, particularly in this week when we read it in the Torah, even if we feel vulnerable and weak, and we have not yet reached our personal potential in sanctifying the specific material things around us, and also our own lives as a whole. The effort we make to sanctify the world opens the channel to make this physical world, where divinity is so hidden, into a dwelling place for G-d. And the more each of us interacts with the world around us in this way, the easier we make it for others to do as well.

The saintly Rebbe Michil of Zlotshuv was well known for the adamant limits he placed on himself from being involved in the material world. He lived a life of abject poverty, and would pray and study for most of his waking hours, staying away from many things that were considered completely acceptable to the average person. At one point in his life he became very dangerously ill. His children, all of them also great saints, traveled to the great tzadik, Rabbi Pinchus of Koretz, so that he would pray for their father's recovery. Perhaps he prayed and perhaps not. Nevertheless, the tradition is that Rabbi Pinchus prepared a meal of all types of dairy delicacies for Rebbe Michil and told his children as follows: "Tell your father that in order to be cured, he has must eat these cheeses which he has never in his life eaten. The reason he is ill is that the divine sparks in these foods are complaining about him in heaven: Why isn't Rebbe Michil eating us, and with his great saintliness-everything he does is just for the sake of heaven-elevate our sparks." And so it was, and he was cured.

There are some times and situations in our life when we must use oaths to protect and defend ourselves. There are other time and situations where limits are not needed. Just as for a person on a low level, not making limits can cause damage, so too, for a person on a very sublime level, inappropriate limits can also cause damage. A wise person thinks seriously about what his goal is, and what level he is at, and acts accordingly.

(Translated and adapted from Asader Seudasa, from a talk from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and from Toras Hamagid m'Zlotshuv.)

Shabbat Shalom, Shaul

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