Dvar Torah for Parshat Behaalotekha

Based on Likutey Halakhot, Hilkhot Pesach 6:11-12

"The people shatu (spread out) in order to gather [the manna]" (Numbers 11:8). They gathered the manna out of shtusa (foolishness; Zohar 2:62b).

Who among us has never felt the pinch—or perhaps the vise-like grip—of being short of money? And having felt that, how many have not made the short step from there to borrowing?

We all know that "God desires the heart" (Sanhedrin 106b). "And you will know today and bring it to your heart, that Hashem is the Lord, in Heaven above and on Earth below—there is no other!" (Deuteronomy 4:39). So, we study Torah to build our daat (mind) so that we may feed our heart and give it to Hashem (God).

However, this does not automatically happen. Rather, since you are a microcosm of the universe and of history, the challenges and struggles depicted in the Torah are taking place within you throughout life. The issue of supremacy that our holy Patriarch Yaakov (Jacob) and his evil brother Esav (Esau) began to resolve, arises each time you sit down to eat. (Yes, you should sit down when you eat.)

When we eat, our mind and our body engage in a struggle to determine who will control the energy gained from the meal. Our daat, like our Patriarch Yaakov, wants to use the energy to focus on God, both in the overtly spiritual activities we engage in (aka mitzvot), and in the mundane. On the other hand, our body, with the liver as its chieftain, wants to "re-invest" the energy back into the business of enjoying more pleasure. Unfortunately, the liver is too often victorious. What gives him the upper hand?

Our feelings. When we come to the table with feelings of anger and resentment, or of disappointment and failure, or of fear and worry, we are almost guaranteeing a negative outcome from our meal. This is because the food we will have eaten, when it is partially digested, will enter the intestinal tract from where the nutrients will enter the bloodstream via the intestinal walls. The blood takes those nutrients and delivers them to the heart. The negative "additive" prevents our heart from accepting what our daat wants to convey. As a result, the heart desires the material pleasures in an unhealthy way and we become their slaves, spending our time—and money—feeding them.

As we foolishly pursue these two avenues, of money and transient desire, we do not totally forget our desire for the good. But we do become discouraged, some time greatly so, by our failure to concretize that good desire. So, we may have our next meal "in the presence of our enemies" (Psalms 23:5) more negative feelings: rage, embarrassment, self-loathing. When we try to catch our material dreams and contentment and it seems that we're just a little bit short of it, we borrow money in the hope of closing the gap. If we don't close that gap, we feel like two-time losers: we have neither the spiritual success our daat would incline us to nor the material satisfaction our body seduced us into slaving for. The negative feelings become even deeper.

Their presence perpetuates the cycle we've unwittingly entered: negative desire, pursuit there of, negative feelings, more negative desire, more pursuit there of, more negative feelings. Topping it off are the bills: the credit card payments, the bank overdrafts, the loans and mortgages that are due. We slave away to pay them off. Is there any exit from this bondage?

Thank God, yes! The Torah gives us a mitzvah to lend money to our fellow Jews, interest free. But even more importantly, the Torah enjoins us not to treat the borrower as a creditor normally would, lording it over him or demanding special consideration (Exodus 22:24). This dual kindness—lending the money in a benevolent manner—gives encouragement to the borrower, giving rise to positive feelings that engender anew the resolve to focus on what the daat ought to be focused upon.

(See also Rabbi Nachman's Wisdom #193 where the Rebbe says that one must use the powers with money as he does with food. See also Likutey MoHaran, I #68 that anger and money stem from the same spiritual source and that a temptation to get angry is an invitation to gain money, if one resists the temptation, and a threat to lose it, if one gets angry.)

agutn Shabbos!
Shabbat Shalom!