The following are excerpts from Yishmeru
Daas a sefer of explanations, essays, and
mussar on the parshiyos hashavua and
Yomim Tovim by HaRav Dovid
Povarsky zt'l whose first yahrtzeit
was 6 Adar.
You Did Not Believe Me
That They Made an Eigel
This was said in a shmuess on leil
Shabbos parshas Vayakheil, 5757.
"Moshe turned and went down from the mountain . . .
It came to pass, as soon as he came near the camp,
that he saw the eigel and the dancing: and
Moshe's anger burned, and he threw the
luchos out of his hands and broke them at
the foot of the mountain" (Shemos 32:15,
19).
Moshe Rabbenu's breaking the luchos was
considered a matter of great importance, something
he was congratulated for doing and was even given a
yashar koach straight from HaKodosh
Boruch Hu. "I will write upon these
luchos the words that were on the first
luchos, which you broke (asher
shibarta)" (Shemos 34:1). Chazal
(Shabbos 87a) infer, "Yashar kochacho
sheshibarta" (You should be commended for
breaking them).
Nonetheless, Chazal (Devorim Rabbah 3:11,
Yalkut Ki Siso 392) write: "HaKodosh
Boruch Hu said to him, `Moshe, You did not
believe Me that they made an eigel,' as is
written, `They have quickly turned aside from the
way which I commanded them' (Shemos 32:8).
To some extent Hashem criticized Moshe Rabbenu,
indicating that some realization was added to him
when he actually saw the eigel. HaKodosh
Boruch Hu had already told Moshe that bnei
Yisroel made the eigel and it should
have bothered him to hear about this from Hashem as
much as it did to really see it. However, what did
happen was that only after he tangibly saw the
eigel was he so disturbed that he broke the
luchos.
Haftorah of Ki Siso:
Said on Shabbos, Parshas Behar,
5757
"Let it be known this day that you are Elokim in
Yisroel and that I am your servant" (I
Melachim 18:35).
We see that Eliyahu Hanovi performed great miracles
-- "Answer us as You answered Eliyahu Hanovi on
Mount Carmel" (Selichos). This was a
tremendous miracle and it was done publicly. Elisha
too did tremendous miracles, such as with the flask
of oil and techiyas hameisim for the
Shunamis woman. Nonetheless, we do not find that
the nevi'im who lived in Yerushalayim did
any nissim. It is not mentioned in the
Tanach that Yeshaya and Yirmiyahu did any
nissim. Can it possibly be that the
nevi'im of Yerushalayim were lesser than the
others and could not perform any miracles?
It seems to me that it was not because they were on
a lower level, but on the contrary, the
nevi'im outside of Yerushalayim had a
greater need to show nissim to Klal
Yisroel. Those in Yerushalayim did not need to
do so, since people saw the daily miracles in the
Beis Hamikdosh. "The rains did not
extinguish the fire on the altar, the wind did not
disperse the vertical column of smoke from the
altar, no disqualification was found in the Omer,
or in the Shtei HaLechem, or in the
Lechem HaPonim . . ." (Yoma 21a,
Ovos 5:5). Each person was able to see the
nissim himself.
The Great Danger of a Kula
Leil Shabbos, Parshas Vayakheil, 5757
"Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh
day there shall be to you a holy day, a Shabbos of
rest to Hashem . . ." (Shemos 35:2).
Rashi explains that Hashem "placed the
azhoroh (warning) about Shabbos before the
command to build the Mishkan, to teach us
that [building the Mishkan] does not
override Shabbos." This needs to be understood. If
the only reason Shabbos is mentioned here is to
reveal to us that building the Mishkan does
not override Shabbos observance, the parsha
should have started with the building of the
Mishkan, which is its main aim, and
afterwards indicate that this does not defer
Shabbos. Why did the Torah start by telling us the
melochos of Shabbos?
[We indeed see that when HaKodosh Boruch Hu
actually commanded Moshe, first He instructed him
to make the Mishkan and only at the end, in
parshas Ki Siso (31:13), Hashem said,
"Verily My Shabbossos shall you keep," since
building the Mishkan does not defer
observing Shabbos.]
I thought it possible to say the following: We see
that without a gezeiras hakosuv we would
have initially thought that building the
Mishkan overrides the Shabbos. If the Torah
had not first written the warning to observe
Shabbos, for a short while we would have thought
that we can be lenient about hilchos
Shabbos. Although afterwards we would
understand that building the Mishkan cannot
defer Shabbos, the immediate impression would have
been that there is some kula, some leniency,
in our Shabbos observance. Every kula makes
an impression and great harm can emerge from it.
Noach too was mistaken when after leaving the
teivah he immediately planted a grape vine.
For him this was considered a kula, and by
means of it he was transformed from a person who
was a tzaddik into an am ha'aretz
(see Bereishis Rabbah 36:3, Yalkut
Bereishis 8:61, Yalkut Devorim
33:951).
The same is true concerning the eigel. A
kula involving their request to appoint a
leader instead of Moshe, who was a "man of Elokim,"
caused bnei Yisroel later to "prostrate
themselves to [the eigel] and sacrifice to
it."
With Avrohom Ovinu we see the opposite: he always
remained firm in his emunah. Chazal
(Bereishis Rabbah 42:8, Yalkut
Bereishis 14:73) write that "the whole world
was on one side and he was on the other side."
Nothing in the world could move him even one inch
from his faith. Not only was he not lenient for
himself [i.e., he was not influenced by the whole
world that stood on the other side], on the
contrary, he continued to build himself more and
more until he reached his lofty level.
The same is true about R' Avrohom ben Avrohom, the
ger tzedek of Vilna. Before he was taken to
be burned, his mother came and tried to convince
him to reject his pure emunah. He did not
move an inch. It is told that the Vilna Gaon
informed him that he could free him from jail and
save him. The Gaon had such a power. The ger
tzedek, however, refused and said he did not
want to be saved. He did not let anyone influence
him at all. This is the reason why only one ger
tzedek has remained famous as being the
ger tzedek, after Avrohom Ovinu who was also
a ger tzedek.
This is the difference between Noach and Avrohom
Ovinu. Noach was warned but was lenient for
himself. Avrohom, however, did not allow any
kula for himself even when the whole world
was against him and threatened to burn him.
All aveiros start off with some kula.
The kula is what drags after it every
aveira.
This mussar is extremely relevant to us. For
instance, when we are sitting and studying Torah
and it happens that someone is embarrassed because
another person pointed out that he made a mistake
in his studies, we tend not to impart any
significance to that. After all, we say, it only
happened in the midst of studying. This is
incorrect. It is proper to think before
starting to study that the Torah does not defer the
issur of embarrassing another person, or
any aveira. It is not necessary to
sit several minutes thinking about this, but this
thought, that studying Torah does not free us from
any obligations, should precede our studying
Torah!
This is why Moshe Rabbenu first warned bnei
Yisroel about the Shabbos before he mentioned
building the Mishkan.
HaRav Dovid Povarsky zt'l was the rosh yeshiva
of Yeshivas Ponevezh in Bnei Brak.
