A joke to begin with.
Shlomo and Miriam Cohen were visiting Shlomo’s 95-year-old Zadie when he asked them to take him to buy a new Shabbos hat. Shlomo was worried that Zadie wouldn’t have enough money to buy the hat and might become embarrassed, so he asked the salesperson to tell Zadie that whichever hat he chose costs $25 and Shlomo would pay the difference. Zadie picked out a beautiful new Shabbos hat and was charged $25. After he left, Shlomo paid the other $175. Later Zadie said, "What a bargain! The last one I bought there, cost me $200!" I think back to this as it seems to me that there is a habit that some people have which they confuse with being a ‘Jewish custom’ of sorts. I mean the excitement of getting something for free. Or at least heavily discounted. Or at the very furthest extreme at least not paying retail prices. Some (jokingly?) say that it seems almost sinful to buy something without fierce bargaining. This weeks Parsha has a verse that jumps out at me because it dispels the notion that paying for something is wrong when you may be able to finagle or beg for it and get if for free. Here are the verses I am referring to (using the Kehot interpolated translation incorporating Rashi’s commentary to the text). The background is, that as the Jews were getting closer to Israel, they passed by neighboring countries. Hashem told them that they skirt those borders but could engage with the inhabitants to procure food and drink. Devarim Chapter 2 verse 6: You may buy food from them with money, that you may eat; and you may also buy water from them with money, that you may drink. 7: In fact, you should purchase food from them, in order to show that God, your God, has blessed you in whatever you do and that you have thus become wealthy. As you know, He was intimately aware of your needs during your trek through this great desert; you have lacked nothing throughout these forty years that God, your God, has been with you.” ’ This verse and the reasoning present a different perspective on the ‘custom’ of bargaining. Let me clarify myself here. I am not advocating extravagance of wastefulness. We are taught in the Torah not to be wasteful. Every resource we have in our reach should be incorporated and used in our mission here on earth to serve the Almighty. The Torah tells us how Yaakov went back over the river to retrieve some inexpensive items he had left behind. Yaakov was a wealthy man at the time but since everything one owns should be utilized in the service of G-d, a Tzadik doesn’t walk away from things objects that he can incorporate into his Divine service. Click here for a kabalistic teaching by the Arizal on this verse. I recall that the Rebbe rejected the new roomy more luxurious car that some supporters wanted to give to him. He said that the old car did the job just fine, and it had taken him on many important journeys (between home, office and the resting place of his sainted father-in-law at the Ohel). It would be a waste to get a new car. He continued using the old car till his passing. Clearly, we need to be mindful of how we spend resources even if we have much more than we can spend. Hashem gives us what we have, and it is intended to be used meaningfully. But there are other factors that need to be taken into account as well. Recently my father shared with me a Yiddish idiom he heard from his grandmother when he was a child. ‘Better to throw out than to throw in’. It refers to the prohibition of wasting food. What happens when there are a few pieces of food left over, without anyone to eat it before it goes off. In the olden days, there was usually not an oversupply of food, and the tradition was ‘don’t throw out food’. Rather eat the food so it is not wasted. Today, there is often (thank G-d) food left over. Sometimes in the name of not being wasteful one will eat more than they intended. ‘It’s a waste to throw out such good, tasty, expensive food’ one says. However, we may be overlooking other factors. We all know that overeating has consequences that are not beneficial. The ‘price’ and ‘expense’ that the human body pays for ingesting the additional food is no less wasteful of a behavior. Thus, it really makes sense to remember that, ‘throwing out is better than throwing in’. (In the original Yiddish ‘aroisvarfen is besser vi areinvarfen’). What this week’s Parsha may be teaching us is that there is an additional dimension to consider when we act overly frugal. Part of our mission here on earth is to proclaim the existence of G-d. We are walking ‘marketing agents’ for G-d’s presence here on earth. Our sages taught besides the mitzvah that we have to love G-d, we are also enjoined to bring others to love G-d. How does one do that? One way is, not by lecturing about G-d but by acting kind and nice beyond the usual expectations of society. When someone who believes in G-d acts extraordinarily honest and caring, they are advertising that G-d is the source of all good and kind things. This will engender the love toward G-d in society at large. Another way we cause people to come closer to G-d is to share how benevolent He is to us. This is why it is not enough to be internally thankful to Hashem for His kindness to us. We are instructed to share our gratitude out loud. The song that the Jewish people sang at the splitting of the sea was a classic example of ‘if you are happy and you know it sing a song of praise to G-d’. When someone is granted a miracle where his life was saved from an almost certain fatal danger, there is a custom to make a ‘seudat hodaah’ a feast of thanksgiving and invite family and friends to publicize G-d’s miraculous intervention. When we portray ourselves as being poor and needy, what message are we communicating about G-d’s kindness and beneficence? Acting poor and needy is a statement that loudly pronounces that you have scarce resources. Scrounging for free food would be creating an image that the Jewish people are an abandoned needy people. If one needs help, it is foolish and conceited to be too proud to ask. Hashem created his world with an imbalance of resources so that we should be given the gift of giving and the humility of receiving. But in this case the Jewish people were no needy. The opposite was true. While they were traveling in the desert, G-d had given them every need, way beyond subsistence. G-d had made them wealthy. They may need food on their journey, but they can well afford to buy it. And in this way, by buying their food rather than begging for it, they are showing that G-d has taken care of them in a generous way. May I apply this a little more broadly to the way we talk about our connection to the land of Israel. Sometimes I sense an apologetic bent in the way Jewish people speak about Israel. As if we are uninvited and unwanted guests that are somehow tolerated but we should make sure not to speak up too loudly. We are expected to quietly accept whatever policies or dictates the ‘world leaders’ impose upon us. It is important to remember. We are not ‘beggars’ in the world arena who need to ask and curry favor from the nations of the world to have the right to exist in our land and defend our people. Hashem gave us our land. He created it. He gave it to us. There were some periods in history when He took it from us, but essentially and existentially He gave his promised land to His promised People. Period. Lying low, trying not to attract attention and with our body language acting as if we are intruders of colonists who have invaded a land is simply a misrepresentation. So is relying on the UN resolution that granted the modern-day Israel its right to statehood. It is a shallow point that takes away attention from our truthful Biblical claim to Israel. UN resolutions can come and go. G-d’s words in the Torah are eternal. The Jewish claim to the land of Israel is simple. It is a gift from G-d. To our forefathers Avraham, Yitschak and Yaakov. And to us, the eternal Jewish people who are their direct descendants. It is disrespectful to Hashem to act as if we are recipients of the nations-of-the-worlds kindness when really our thanks should go to G-d. We welcome and bless all who help us, and indeed we are blessed that there are nations who choose to help us. Hashem promises to bless those who support His people. As the Torah says ‘those who bless you will be blessed’. In this week’s Parshah the Torah tells us and reminds us that if we have been given a gift, we ought to thank Hashem for it and openly acknowledge the great blessing that He has given us. With prayers for our soldiers, our hostages, our wounded and the millions of brothers and sisters living with such faith and determination. May Hashem bless us to bring Mashiach and be brought to Eretz Yisrael (every single one of us) to witness the building of the Bet Hamikdash, the ushering in of permanent world peace, and the transformation of Tisha B’av into a day of joy and jubilance. Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Yosef Kantor
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