Eikev Shama B’Koli
Parshas Eikev – The Rishonim try to understand what the word Eikev means. Rashi darshens it as alluding to the mitzvos the people are “dush b’eikev.” But the Ramban tries to find a pashut pshat for the word. And in his comments he says Eikev means “because of” like we find by Avraham Avinu that HKBH said Avraham will get all the brachos עֵקֶב אֲשֶׁר שָׁמַע אַבְרָהָם בְקֹלִי וַיִּשְׁמֹר מִשְׁמַרְתִי מִצְוֹתַי חֻקּוֹתַי וְתוֹרֹתָי. “Because of.” We need to understand the kesher between Eikev and HKBH’s brachos.
Chazal say Avraham Avinu was mekayim kol haTorah Koola when he first recognized HKBH. And they point this out in the word Eikev. הִכִּיר בּוֹרְאוֹ בֶּן שָׁלֹשׁ שָׁנִים – three years old when he recognized HKBH – שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר עֵקֶב אֲשֶׁר שָׁמַע. Eikev b’gematria is 172; Avraham lived 175. 175-172 = 3 years old when he recognized HKBH and started keeping kol hatorah koola. So Eikev is referring to the shpitz darga of Avraham Avinu which made him zoche to all the brachos. And it’s not referring to the older version of Avraham Avinu after he passed all 10 nisyonos – which is what you’d expect. No, instead Eikev is describing the shpitz Avraham Avinu when he first started at age three. It needs biur.
The Gra – in Aderes Eliyahu – learns that Avraham was mekayeim kol haTorah kulah, from the details in this passuk by Avraham.
עֵקֶב אֲשֶׁר שָׁמַע אַבְרָהָם בְקֹלִי וַיִּשְׁמֹר מִשְׁמַרְתִי מִצְוֹתַי חֻקּוֹתַי וְתוֹרֹתָי
Bereishis 26:5
He explains there are arba’a chalakei haTorah: Torah she’bichsav, Torah she’ba’al peh, the drashos, and the gezeiros d’rabbanan.
Vayishmor mishmarti – the gezeiros of the rabbanan;
mitzvosai – halacha l’Moshe mi’Sinai;
chukosai – the drashos haTorah;
v’sorosai – Torah she’bichsav.
But then the Gra adds one more thing. וְעוֹד יֵשׁ חֵלֶק הִא בַּתּוֹרָה – there is a fifth chelek: the Aseres HaDibros, שֶׁהוּא כְּלַל הַכֹּל. And this is learned from the word b’koli – כִּי עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדִּבְּרוֹת שָׁמְעוּ מֵהַשֵּם עַצְמוֹ בְּקוֹלוֹ, כְּמוֹ שֶׁכָּתוּב קוֹל דְּבָרִים אַתֶּם שֹׁמְעִים.
So Avraham was mekayeim kol haTorah kulah from A to Z – and also he was mekayem the Aseres HaDibros? Well if he was mekayem kol hatorah koola, then of course he was mekayem the Aseres Hadibros! What is this added detail of the Aseres Hadibros?
And the Gra says the dibros are Kollel Hakol. Which b’chlal needs hesber, what exactly is so special of the Aseres HaDibros? Halachically it’s actually problematic to give deference to one chelek of Torah over others. Chazal stopped the practice of reading the Aseres Hadbros daily out of concern for over-deference to one chelek of Torah. So, we need to understand the inyan of the Aseres Hadibros as it’s own chelek of Torah, and what shaychus does it have to עקב אשר שמע אברהם בקולי ?
There’s a passuk: אַחַת דִבֶּר אֱלֹקִים שְׁתַּיִם זוֹ שָׁמָעְתִּי. When HaKadosh Baruch Hu speaks there’s one dibbur, but within the one dibbur, if a person tunes in to the dibbur, they can hear more than just one thing.
L’mashal – someone asks me, “Can I do this?” and I answer, “If you really want to.” If you listen the explicit words that he says, he’s giving you permission to do the thing. The words say yes. But the formulation of his answer and the tone, tells me a different story.
To say it differently, the dibbur gives me reshus; but the kol that carries those words says no. A dibbur is an explicit, formulated word, clearly spelled out. But a kol is the whole world of nuance that lives inside and around the word: the tone, the implication, the ratzon behind it.
In parshas Shlach it says שְׁלַח לְךָ – mida’atecha. “If you think you should, you can do it.” Mitzad the dibbur, the words, it’s a permission to send; but mitzad the kol, the nuance, it’s saying not to. The word conveys one thing; the kol speaks volumes. “Achas diber, shtayim shomati.”
However, the truth is, without the kol, there’s a nisayon that lay in just dibburim alone. When you only have dibburim, you can say there’s a finite letter of the law, but no spirit of the law. A person who is uninterested in the kol, can usually find a way to wiggle out of the dibburim. L’mashal, a tax attorney who darshens tax loopholes all day – not because he doesn’t recognize the words, but because he has no be’etzem interest in the ratzon behind them; the words are merely imposed on him, and so he wriggles between them.
This is the klal of “v’asisa hayashar v’hatov b’einei Hashem” and “Lifnim m’shuras hadin.” Like the Rishonim say, HKBH didn’t speak out rules for every single possible situation. With dibburim there are always gaps and loopholes. And the person who wants out, can find a way out. But a person who is shomeya the kol will realize the broad ratzon that includes all the unspoken cases.
And listen to Rashi on this passuk: עֵקֶב אֲשֶׁר שָׁמַע אַבְרָהָם בְקֹלִי Rashi asks what’s koli? Rashi says “Omeid Bnisayon!” B’diyuk! A nisayon is something a person wants out of. Where there is a nisayon, my ratzon is to escape, and dibburim alone will never hold a person. אֶת בִנְךָ אֶת יְחִידְךָ אֲשֶׁר אָהַבְתָּ – Avraham could have “darshened” his way out. Chazal say he could have called it שְׁנֵי כְתוּבִים הַמַכְחִישִׁים זֶה אֶת זֶה – etmol You told me יִצְחָק יִקָּרֵא לְךָ זָרַע, hayom You tell me farkert; the words can’t mean what they say.
But a person who is shomeia b’kol has nothing to wriggle out of. He hears not just dibburim, but also the ratzon within the kol.
Nimtza’nu lomeidim – there were two ofanim in Torah. There is the ofen of dibburim meforashim, defined and limited words and commands, and there’s the gilui of kol from which everything that’s not meforash is nilmad.
This is the progression that the Gra presented – a progression from what is most galui to what is least galui:
The things written meforash – divrei Torah – are the most galui; the dibburim suffice. The next darga is the drashos, which still have some anchor in the words but need a drash to draw out. The darga after that is halacha l’Moshe mi’Sinai – Torah she’ba’al peh that doesn’t even shtell zich tzu to a pasuk. And the furthest one out is the d’rabbanan.
That’s the nifladik pnimiyus within d’rabbanans. The Maharal says this – that d’rabbanans are not an invention from nothing. They were already tamun within the Torah.
L’mashal, mayim rishonim and mayim acharonim. Chazal hear mayim rishonim and mayim acharonim from within the words וְהִתְקַדִּשְׁתֶּם וִהְיִיתֶם קְדֹשִׁים – the Torah describes kedusha with dibburim, it simply did not give it as a geder chiyuv. The toichen is d’oraisa, the Chachamim had the ear to daher what lay within the kol.
And this is the inyan of Kol by the Aseres Hadibros. By Har Sinai it says: קוֹל דְּבָרִים אַתֶּם שֹׁמְעִים. The Rambam in the Moreh says that all of Klal Yisrael heard only kolos at Har Sinai – כִּי קוֹל אַתֶּם שֹׁמְעִים. On one hand it’s a chissaron – they needed Moshe to be omeid on the dibbur, they couldn’t do that themselves.; but on the other hand, it was a ma’alyusa – klal Yisroel’s experience was an experience of kol. The malyusa of the Aseres HaDibros is that they they were given as kol Hashem which is kolel more than any particular dibbur can. Shtayim Shomati, we hear two – because inside the single dibbur is nichlal many inyanim. Kol haTorah kulah, all the pratim and pirtei pratim and gufei halachos, are the dibburim that got nisparet out of that kol.
And this is the inyan of the kol hatorah koola that Avraham kept.עֵקֶב אֲשֶׁר שָׁמַע אַבְרָהָם בְקֹלִי which began at ben gimmel shanim. Before he ever grasped the dibburim, before the chiluka dibburim and chiluka osiyos, he first heard the kol. The entirelty of Avraham Avinu’s gadlus was already nichlal in the shoresh, just as the entirety of the dibburim are already nichlal in the kol.
And more than that. The person can only be nisbarech if he’s a conduit for the kol, not just dibburim וְהִתְבָּרְכוּ בְזַרְעֲךָ כֹּל גּוֹיֵי הָאָרֶץ. When people see a person who is mechubar to something higher, to something which is more than meets the eye, that ushers in bracha. If a person is just following dibburim, that’s nice, that’s compliant, but an outsider doesn’t see anything beyond following directives. But when the person does more than what the dibburim call for, they detect that there’s a larger ratzon, a broader kol that this person aligns with. They see a tzinor, a hemshech of HaKadosh Baruch Hu in the world, and that is what brings bracha.
Let’s bring this down to us:
We are all overly qualified in the area of dibburim. We have Shulchan orech and Mishna Berurah which spell out the letter of the law.
But the vast majority of life is not spelled out. There are endless grey areas where there is no meforash pasak. What does a person do there? That’s where having a shaychus to the Kol is critical. Developing a kesher with HKBH’s ratzon will inform you.
L'mashal: if you ask me what a person I've never met will need, I can only tell you what seichel says — food, drink, sleep. His particular needs I cannot say because I have no glimpse into the person. But let me have one kesher with him — and if I am a baal havana, from that one interaction I can daher even things he may not have spoken. We need to push ourselves to get exposure, and be misbonen in it, and we’ll detect the unspoken kol.
And we also need to be aware of the great nisayon, the great temptation to ignore the kol and be satisfied with just checking off the boxes. As we said, if you want loopholes – and the loopholes are very tempting! – if you want loopholes, you’ll focus only on the limited dibburim, and whatever applies, I’ll comply, and whatever doesn’t, doesn’t. That kook limits you, it severely impacts your ability to hear any kol, and it blocks any bracha from flowing thru you.
V’haya Eikev tishmi’un – The brachos are poised and ready to flow to the person who is omed b’nisayon, and is not satisfied to hear only achas diber e-lokim, but is nishtokek for the kol of “shtayim zu shamati.”
Good Shabbos!