Dvar Torah for Parshat Shoftim

Based on Likutey Halakhot, Reishit HaGez 4:1, 2

"...The first of what you shear from your sheep give to [the kohen]." (Deuteronomy 18:4)

Most of us, when we think sheep (if we ever do), think of Bo Peep and the ones she lost. When we think wool we think sweaters, skirts and suits. What connection can we make between this mitzvah and our non-farm lives?

On the verse, "Your hair is like that of a flock of goats" (Song of Songs 4:1, 6:5) Rashi comments: God says to the Jewish people, "Even the empty ones among you are precious to Me" and "There is much to praise even in the weak and scrawny ones among you." The "woolen hairs" that God finds by a Jew are very precious to Him. What are they and why are they so precious?

"'Where will you rest them in the hot afternoon?' - the hot afternoon of exile" (Shir HaShirim Rabbah 1:7:2 on Song of Songs 1:7). In the "hot afternoon" of exile, when Jews are enslaved to pay taxes to promote the interests of heathens, when Jews are enslaved and think like their gentile masters, how can they possibly rest and gather their strength to observe God's Torah and mitzvot the way they should?

It's well-nigh impossible. Each and every one of us is fighting an uphill battle and, frankly, most of us are taking a licking. Yet, each of us tries hard and succeeds, somewhat, to inch forward, to budge a little, to come a hairsbreadth closer to God, by rejecting the selfishness, the grabbing at the fleeting pleasures of this world, in favor of giving of himself to God.

"But what is it worth? How much did I really accomplish?" There are two answers (at least) to this question. First, each hairsbreadth is cumulative. One by one they add up and become a gift worthy of God's praise, endearing that scrawny little goat (you!) to the Blessed Creator (as above). The second answer is provided by the following:

The Rebbe once told a story about a melancholy tzaddik (saint) who wanted to make himself happy, but found it impossible to do so. No matter what he thought of to make himself happy, Satan (the Evil Inclination) would point out to him why in fact that thing was not a reason to be happy. Finally he find something that was unassailable: God had not made him a heathen.

He started to dwell on this thought and it made him happier and happier. He became so happy, he was as happy as Moses was at the time he received the Tablets! The tzaddik was so uplifted that he was traveling light-years in the spiritual worlds. He was concerned that when he descended he would be so far from home that people would discover that he was a tzaddik. He did not want that.

Joy has a limit, begining and ending automatically. It ends little by little and so, too, the tzaddik descended little by little. When he landed he was exactly where he landed, no more than a hairsbreadth from where he had taken off! The distance was so slight only God could measure it!

How did the tzaddik move so far spiritually when physically he had moved almost not at all? The Rebbe reminds us of the geometric fact that two lines which start together at the same point move further and further away from one another the more they move away from the starting point. Where you are before you moved and your spiritual state then are two endpoints of one "line"; where you are after you moved and your spiritual state then are two endpoints of a different "line." In this world they're very close, but spirtually they're light-years apart!

(For the entire story see Rabbi Nachman's Stories pp. 447-451 or www.breslov.org/stories.html, "The Melancholy Saint".)

Agutn Shabbos!
Shabbat Shalom!