l'ilui nishmas Esther bas Mordechai
 

Parashas Ki Saitsai
Rav
Chaim Lifshitz

 

Home

     

Parashas Ki Saitsai

The Woman of Beautiful Appearance

translated by S. Nathan

l'ilui nishmas Esther bas Mordechai

 

Ohr HaChaim: “I have already written a number of times that through an act of mitzvah, the light of the Shechina clothes itself in man, and evil’s part is evicted from him, as it says: “A mitzva keeper will know no evil.”  This is especially true of the emissaries of mitzva.  See also my commentary in Parashas Shlach Lecha regarding emissaries of mitzva: During the moment of their mission, their mitzva is saving them even from yetser hara.”

“In a similar vein, someone who is involved in transgressing a commandment, the spirit of impurity clothes itself in him, and distorts his path…And we will allude here to a mystery: We know that the entire edifice of the universe, and its continued existence, is dependent on the action of the nation of b’nei Yisrael.  If they make their path good, the world continues to exist, “and the heavens rejoice and the earth exults,” and God our Lord too delights and exults in us.  Now we know that the righteousness of Israel’s path depends on their vanquishing the yetser hara…”

“‘And you shall set her free’…there is a reason why he must set her free and not sell her.  [It appears that the Torah’s approach is dealing with the innermost pnimius of the connection.  There lies the source of temptation.  Therefore let him not deal with the cheftza of the money resulting from the sale of the woman of beautiful appearance.  Let him not] benefit from money from her, as part of the general captivity that God has given him.” 

Why does it say ki tsaisai, “When you go forth to war”?  It is discussing the return from war after all.  “And you shall bring her inside your house.”  “The Torah was speaking only about resisting the yetser hara, the urge to create evil,” to teach you the ways of this great war, which never looses its grip on man as long as he lives.  “The woman of beautiful appearance,” “the loved wife and the hated wife,” “the rebellious son” – a package deal based on the human tendency towards evil.  For the yetser hara has no essential substance of its own, no autonomous existence.  It is all nothing but a tendency, and this tendency man is commanded to control, which will set in motion a more positive series of consequences:

“If you fulfilled the mitzva of sending the mother bird from the nest, you will end by building a new house and fulfilling the mitzva of ma’akeh, building a security railing around your roof, because one mitzva drags another in its wake, and you will reach the point of [having to fulfill the mitzvas that deal with] vineyard and field and beautiful clothing.   This is why these topics were written together.” (Rashi from Midrash Tanchuma)

“Remember what God did…to Miriam…” The plague of leprosy is the crossroads where severe transgressions meet.  The parasha is pointing here to the cause that arouses the yetser hara from its slumber: The cause lies in one’s innermost being, in one’s pnimius.

“Should a man have two wives, one loved and one hated…he may not choose the beloved wife’s son as the firstborn over the hated wife’s son [who is the real firstborn].”  Which emotion more faithfully reflects characteristic human emotion – the emotion of hatred or the emotion of love?  From the Torah it appears that hatred is the deeper, more originally human emotion, for the simple reason that the yetser hara, the urge to create evil, preceded the yetser tov, the urge to create good.  One tends more toward hatred than toward love, and therefore the Torah saw fit to awaken human beings to this pitfall, for the law of the first born is quite clear-cut, and how could one possibly rationalize – what could the hava amina possibly be that would justify – transgressing a clearly stipulated Torah law?

Love enters from the outside into one’s pnimius, one’s inner being.
Hate – from one’s pnimius to the outside.

In order to hate, one requires no proofs and no reinforcements.  One suffices with simply accepting lashon hara, slanderous words heard and believed.  See Bava Basra 38 regarding protest in the presence of three.  The Gemara brings a machlokes: One side maintains that lashon hara cannot exist if three are present.  The reason seems to be that three people’s presence creates a public domain.  It becomes an outside event.   The source of lashon hara on the other hand lies in pnimius ha’adam, the innermost human self. 

As everyone knows, an individual does not usually “check the tsitis,” i.e. verify the credentials of the speaker of lashon hara.  He gloats instead over the great find: A reason to hate.  In contrast, in order to love (we are not referring to love of the flesh, which is simply lust) one requires perpetual positive reinforcement on a constant and continuous basis.  Love is easily lost.

Leaving – neglecting – the source of the innermost truth of one’s self – this is what causes the opening to the outside, the succumbing to external stimuli; this is the “woman of beautiful appearance.”  The cure: “You shall bring her inside your house.”  Chazarah b’teshuva, “returning in teshuva,” means returning home from the outside.

Lashon Hara is thus an inner tendency.  It has no outer definitions or boundaries.  Its source is an inner hatred, which is a dangerous tendency.  This tendency goes forth and seeks a victim on the outside.  The solution thus lies beyond knowing the exact details of hilchos lashon hara.  This is insufficient.  One must return and treat the inner source of this tendency.  One must free oneself from the talebearer’s knowledgeable stories and investigate one’s own inner source that seeks out stories about what is happening outside.

The same applies to the self-preservation tendency as a whole.   One must control it, one must clear ego out to make way for the self.  From self-preservation, one must move toward creativity.

There are two paths in avodas Hashem: The path of ego/self-preservation, and the path of the creating self.  The parasha of “the woman of beautiful appearance” is the way of the ego.  For after all, one must serve Hashem in every situation.   Bishnei yetsarecha, “with both of your urges.”  But this is a difficult path and it is the great war, the inner war.  On this path, one should not expect “to have his work done by others.”  One must cope alone, while vulnerable and under fire.  “You shall bring her into your house.”  This is the confrontation with the yetser hara.

The second path is the path of total self-sacrifice for the sake of kidush Hashem.  On this path, one is assured of assistance from on high, as in the Ohr HaChaim’s comment that “Emissaries of mitzva are never harmed.”  Nor need they be concerned about the yetser hara, as mentioned, “for the emissaries of mitzva…during their mission, their mitzva saves them even from the yetser hara.”

On this path, hate turns into love.  “When God is pleased with a man’s ways, even his enemy will make peace with him.”  From this we may understand Chazal’s mysterious statement regarding one who returns in teshuva out of love: His premeditated sins are transformed into merits.  This is because one who returns out of love has transferred to the track of the self by way of love and devotion, and therefore his work is done by others, through hisarusa dili’aila: The “Higher One” is roused to assist him because of his hisarusa dilitasa, because he, “the lower one” has initiated a connection of mesirus nefesh.

This explains why those who deal in mesirus nefesh are not required to use excessive means of hishtadlus.  They are not required to invest excesses of effort, for example in psychological analyses, investigations, and interrogations of a shiduch candidate.  Such excess is rendered superfluous on the track of love.  Here lies the real solution to the problem of lashon hara – even permissible lashon hara.  For the halachos of lashon hara are even subtler and more complex than hilchos Shabbos, which are “mountains that hang by a hair.”

When couples walk the way of Hashem:
“Love your friend as yourself.”  How does one attain this?  After all, by natural processes, “man to man is a wolf.”  And hatred is more natural than love, as mentioned above.  Only on the track of mesirus nefesh in relation to the other, sacrificing as you would for yourself – here is the key to the “love that is not dependent on anything.”  With this key, “the Shechina rests between them.”