Parshas Ki Savo. The parsha has the tochacha, and then at the end it says: אֵלֶּה דִבְרֵי הַבְּרִית אֲשֶׁר צִוָּה ה' אֶת מֹשֶׁה לִכְרֹת אֶת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּאֶרֶץ מוֹאָב מִלְּבַד הַבְּרִית אֲשֶׁר כָּרַת אִתָּם בְּחֹרֵב. So the parsha is spelling out divrei ha’bris.
Next parsha, Nitzavim, is mamshich on that bris — אַתֶּם נִצָּבִים הַיּוֹם — לְעָבְרְךָ בִּבְרִית יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ וּבְאָלָתוֹ אֲשֶׁר יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ כֹּרֵת עִמְּךָ הַיּוֹם:
But between the siyum of the tochacha and Atem Nitzavim sits a small parsha. Moshe calls all of Yisrael and says:
אַתֶּם רְאִיתֶם אֵת כָּל אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה יְהֹוָה לְעֵינֵיכֶם בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם לְפַרְעֹה וּלְכָל עֲבָדָיו וּלְכָל אַרְצוֹ:
{ב} הַמַּסּוֹת הַגְּדֹלֹת אֲשֶׁר רָאוּ עֵינֶיךָ הָאֹתֹת וְהַמֹּפְתִים הַגְּדֹלִים הָהֵם:
{ג} וְלֹא נָתַן יְהֹוָה לָכֶם לֵב לָדַעַת וְעֵינַיִם לִרְאוֹת וְאָזְנַיִם לִשְׁמֹעַ עַד הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה:
Devarim 29:1–3
You saw all the nissim, the massos hagdolos, the mofsim, but Hakadosh Baruch Hu did not give you a heart to know, eyes to see, ears to hear, until this very day.
What does it mean we didn’t know, or see, or hear? What didn’t we know or see or hear? We saw the miracles. We saw the makkos, we saw kriyas yam suf. רָאֲתָה שִׁפְחָה עַל הַיָּם What did we miss? We saw and heard HKBH at Har Sinai. What exactly did we not know or see or hear? What does it mean Hakadosh Baruch Hu did not give you lev lada'as, einayim liros, oznayim lishmoa?
And there's a dikduk lashon. The pasuk doesn't say "you didn’t know, or see, or hear." It says you were lacking lev, einayim, oznayim. As if the yedi’a wasn’t missing, but the keilim were what’s missing. What’s the hesber?
The parsha closes with: וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם אֶת דִּבְרֵי הַבְּרִית הַזֹּאת וַעֲשִׂיתֶם אֹתָם לְמַעַן תַּשְׂכִּילוּ אֵת כָּל אֲשֶׁר תַּעֲשׂוּן — keep the bris, l'maan taskilu. What is taskilu? Targum and Rashi teitsch it as hatzlacha — to be matzliach. And Chazal have the same teitsch. Chazal say on לְמַעַן תַּשְׂכִּילוּ – כָּל הָעוֹסֵק בַּתּוֹרָה נְכָסָיו מַצְלִיחִין לוֹ — one who is osek batorah, his nechasim are matzliach. Okay, sounds nice, but why davka Talmud Torah? If you keep the mitzvos b’chlal you get schar, don’t you? So it needs hesber why davka Talmud torah. And it also needs hesber what’s the kesher between Yiskil and Yatzli’ach? Chazal see it and there’s passukim that support it – אז תצליח את דרכך ואז תשכיל. But it needs hesber.
The mafte’ach is a vort from the Pshischa, Reb Simcha Bunim. He brings the pasuk in Tehillim: אֲבוֹתֵינוּ לֹא הִשְׂכִּילוּ נִפְלְאוֹתֶיךָ — our avos were not maskil the niflaos. And he explains: nothing permanent comes out of a nes. Nissim come and go, and don’t last. Nissim and niflaos need to advance to a level of Torah. Once something advances to the level of Torah, it becomes permanent. That's לְמַעַן תַּשְׂכִּילוּן אֵת כָּל אֲשֶׁר תַּעֲשׂוּן — once we can advance it to the level of taskilu, now it’ll have a shem Torah, bimeila it can last. Essentially our parsha is the transition is from avoseinu lo hiskilu to l'maan taskilu.
Let's be masbir the omek here. Adam Harishon was made בְּצַלְמֵנוּ כִּדְמוּתֵנוּ, and Rashi says: lehavin u'lehaskil. These are modes of understanding which is shayich to adam, not to ba’alei chaim. A ba'al chai has some understanding – it reacts to stimuli. It sees something frightening, it runs away. It’s smells some food, it goes towards it. Adam has this, but also has two additional dimensions of understanding. Adam can detect abstract concepts. And Adam can also take an abstract concept and flesh it out.
L’mashal: Adam can see one object fall, and then a different object fall, and after enough exposures, Adam can detect the idea of gravity. The ability to identify abstract ideas is called l’havin. After grasping the abstract idea, Adam can take it to the next level – where he can apply that idea to his actions: he can learn how to stabilize things so they don’t fall; he can harness gravity to create levers, he can create engines to resist gravity. This is no longer just understanding concepts, but harnessing and applying those concepts so the concepts will impact the way Adam lives his life. This ability to bring abstract concepts into the flesh is called l’haskil.
It’s this second capacity – l’haskil – which integrates the abstract world with the physical world. A person can be exposed to beautiful ideas of chessed and tzidkus. And the person may understand them, but will that idea seep into, and get integrated into Adam? That’s only if Adam uses his ko’ach of l’haskil.
Just like if I give an overwhelming speech, I may dazzle my audience. Or I can show a movie about a poor family in terrible tzaros, and everyone is moved, dabbing their eyes from tears. You succeeded in moving everyone. You may have won them over to the point where they’ll do what I want. They’ll give the tzedakah, they’ll come to shiur, they’ll do the mitzvah – but it’ll only last temporarily. Just as ma'aseh nissim don't last. The yam had to return to it’s original form, the mateh nachash had to become a mateh again. Reverting back is exactly the hallmark of a neis! Nissim don’t last.
Klal Yisrael understands nissim. We can have a havana. But, for anything abstract to last, it needs to be chewed on, worked into, or better, to be worked in thru the teva had’varim.
L’mashal: a person get food I.V.’ed into his stomach through a tube. He has the food, but he feels no connection to it, because it didn't come in through his keilim. Anything that just pops into me, that I merely find within myself, without working it thru my keilim is not going to have a visceral connecting to my metzius. A person can receive a yediyah, implanted in his mind, but without it traversing his keilim — it goes right through them. A person needs to work ideas into, in thru, his flesh.
That's what the pasuk is emphasizing: וְלֹא נָתַן יְהֹוָה לָכֶם לֵב לָדַעַת וְעֵינַיִם לִרְאוֹת וְאָזְנַיִם לִשְׁמֹעַ עַד הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה. There was daas, there was re'iah, there was shmiah — אַתָּה הָרְאֵתָ לָדַעַת, Hakadosh Baruch Hu dazzled us. What was lacking is that the yediyah did not come through the lev, through the einayim, through the oznayim. And without that, even the greatest revelations won’t last.
This is why Dor Hamidbar is called Dor De'ah. It's so hard to understand how a Dor De'ah had seen so much, and yet they had so many issues. The answer is they were just a dor de’ah! There was the man, the slav, the begadim – the whole metzius was pure da'as. That was it! There was yedi'ah but nothing else.
This is the work that needed to happen. And this was the transition that HKBH is telling us about in our parsha. Klal Yisroel went through two phases. The first was a period of one-sided gilluyim from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Mitzrayim and Matan Torah were awesome nissim – dazzling and compelling. But not shaych to being incorporated into our metzius.
The second phase was Klal Yisrael’s transition into Eretz Yisrael. It was a transition – Klal Yisroel’s success was now tied to their efforts. The first transition was milchemes Sichon v'Og, which is also mentioned in this small parsha. It was a real milchama! Mitzrayim was not a milchama; Hakadosh Baruch Hu took the Mitzrim and dumped them in the yam, וְלֹא קָרַב זֶה אֶל זֶה — no engagement, no battle. As spectacular as it is, or rather, because it's so spectacular, it leaves no roshem on the person. But the bris in Arvos Moav — in our Parsha — is where Klal Yisrael engages its guf again. It enters Eretz Yisrael. It’s a makom of zeria and netia which needs to be worked with their own hands.
This envolvment of the keilim, is m’rumez in the word L’haskil. Haskel means understanding; haskel means hatzlacha. But there’s a 3rd meaning: Rashi in Tehillim on Maskil l'Dovid brings a Gemara: wherever it says maskil, it was said through a meturgeman, a translator. Meaning, I can have an idea in my own language; but to implement it I need it carried into the language of the one who will fulfill it. Maskil means being able to take the idea and transition it into something concrete. In communication it's my idea reaching your lev — I can say it in my language all I want, but it won't enter your ears or heart. And a messenger boy who parrots words in a language he doesn't understand is not maskil — his ears never heard it, his heart never grasped it; he carries the words but they never became part of his metzius.
And l’haskil means success because of this. As opposed to the usual term for success – hatzlacha. Not every success is something you worked on. A person buys a lottery ticket and wins — that's a hatzlacha, but not lehaskil. It’s an easy come, which usually also has an easy go. However, Lehaskil is where the person thinks it thru, identifies a strategy and an implementation approach, and maps out how the plan works in the real world. He succeeded by embodying the sechel, making a metzius out of it.
The primary effort of l’haskil is to engage your lev l’da’as. The effort of Talmud Torah is beyond the inspirational schmooze or story. Inspiration is like a neis – it fades, and is gone. You may be moved by the plight of a poor person, but if you want to transform yourself into a ba’al tzeddaka, you need to sit and learn the halachos of tzedaka, the sugyos, the sevaros, the yesodos — where you start seeing the many aspects of tzedakah everywhere, even without a mussar schmooze. Then you’ve been transformed. Then it lasts.
This is why eisek b’Torah is so central. Lehavdil elef havdalos, in other religions the entire religion consists of inspirational messages and doing nice things. The sitting and pouring effort into Bava Kamma and Gittin, into bittul get and bittul shlichus, is not part of any religious experience except Klal Yisrael's. And it’s strange – we’re probably in yeshiva, because something sparked us, inspirired us. And then we go learn? Why is the brunt of our effort davka in this type of effort?
The teirtz is: It's like Matan Torah and all the osos and nissim: Hakadosh Baruch Hu says — rabosai, I know you saw stupendous nissim, you can't get better than that; but as long as you're not seeing with your eyes, not listening with your ears, not chewing it over with your heart and mind, none of it is permanent. אֲבוֹתֵינוּ לֹא הִשְׂכִּילוּ נִפְלְאוֹתֶיךָ — they saw Krias Yam Suf, but it was never given in a way the sechel could absorb, so it dissipated the moment it was over.
The qualitative difference between people is not in the level of inspiration – we’re all inspired. No, the difference is in who gave their lev l’da’as! There's no way to move the inspiration into the olam hametzius except thru engaging it and mapping it out. Unless my mind starts working on it, chewing it, debating it, being completely suffused in it, it doesn't become part of my metzius. It's just a short-lived bubble of inspiration; it won't be internalized.
I want to add something. When we see someone who has a hard time learning, he struggles —and we see it as all negative. We chalk it up as “HKBH knows best, and l’fum tza’ara agra.” But it's far deeper than that. The process of struggling is the engagement of the person with the ideal. Something I broke my head on becomes baked into myself — it becomes part of my metzius. Something that took me a minute means little to me. If an idea comes to me in a snap, nothing in me changed. The person who gets it easy needs to make sure he’s exerting himself. The effort, the amel, the eisek is where the hatzlacha of l’haskil comes from. It’s how you make yourself into a bar-kayama.
There's a maaseh with a Kotzker Chassid — Kotzk's mahalech was to labor over things until they were truly emes. He came to a Rebbe of a very different mahalech, who tried to win him over: "If I show you nissim, will you follow me?" He answered that nissim can be done with all sorts of kishuf. "And if I prove the nissim are genuine?" He answered: an emes brought with blood and sweat and tears, one does not exchange for all the nissim in the world.”
Nissim don’t last. We don’t give away a lasting emes for something ephemeral.
This is a klallistike inyan. Everyone begins with something inspiring — an experience, a vort, whatever it is: וַתִּשָּׂאֵנִי רוּחַ וָאֶשְׁמַע אַחֲרַי קוֹל רַעַשׁ גָּדוֹל. A spirit lifted me. And everyone imagines that if he just collects enough of those — he'll be a great person. The answer is no.
Ask yourself: a person who lived through two "battles" — Mitzrayim, where he woke, read the papers, and a few hundred thousand Mitzrim were at the bottom of Yam Suf without his being scathed; and Sichon and Og, where he had to go to war, face armed men, sweat, be shot at — which one gives a more permanent emunah?
Only Adam can make ruchniyus ideals so tangible that they become permanent Torah. And it’s this ko’ach of Adam that is kores bris with HKBH. לְמַעַן תַּשְׂכִּיל אֵת כָּל אֲשֶׁר תַּעֲשֶׂה
Gut Shabbos!