Parshas Shoftim. Among the dinim of the parsha is investigating the future.
{י} לֹא יִמָּצֵא בְךָ מַעֲבִיר בְּנוֹ וּבִתּוֹ בָּאֵשׁ קֹסֵם קְסָמִים מְעוֹנֵן וּמְנַחֵשׁ וּמְכַשֵּׁף: {יא} וְחֹבֵר חָבֶר וְשֹׁאֵל אוֹב וְיִדְּעֹנִי וְדֹרֵשׁ אֶל הַמֵּתִים:
Devarim 18:10–11
A whole roster of seeking the asid. And Klal Yisroel is commanded not to do those: תמים תהיה עם השם אלקיך.
Rashi says the pshat is:
התהלך עמו בתמימות ותצפה לו ולא תחקור אחר העתידות אלא כל מה שיבוא עליך קבל בתמימות.
Rashi, Devarim 18:13
Walk with Him b’temimus, don’t go digging after the future — whatever comes, accept it. Fine.
But then the hemshech of the passuk doesn’t make sense:
נביא מקרבך מאחיך כמוני יקים לך השם אלקיך אליו תשמעון.
Devarim 18:15
Listen to the Navi. He’ll tell you the future. Ma nafshach — if I’m supposed to be tamim and not care what’s coming, why do I need a navi at all?
And listening to the Navi is not optional. It’s a chiyuv: והיה האיש אשר לא ישמע אל דברי… אנכי אדרוש מעמו. You’re mechuyav to listen. What happened to temmimus?
…
We need to be misbonen not just about asidus, but the whole framework of zman itself.
Hakadosh Baruch Hu is called Havayah — היה הוה ויהיה. He was, is, and will always be. This is not just a poetic flourish, saying HKBH is beyond time, He’s eternal. We sometimes use terms that make relevant things sound irrelevant. Each one of those – היה הוה ויהיה – is a certain way we’re supposed to relate to HKBH.
Haya is Hakadosh Baruch Hu as shoresh ha’briah — the world isn’t Kadmon, HKBH is the siba of everything and everything traces back to Him.
Hoveh is His hashgacha — that even with all our bechira, right now, this minute, we act only birshuso. HKBH gives us the ability to act at every moment. He’s mechadesh the world constantly.
Yihyeh is a little trickier: Yihyeh means there’s an Asid. Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the world with a future, a tachlis, where the world will have achieved its perfection.
That future perfection of briya – that is not just where the world is heading. That is what the world should be striving for. The word Tzofeh that Rashi uses – התהלך עמו בתמימות ותצפה לו – has two meanings. It means to look out into the distance, like tzofeh u’mabit ad sof kol hadoros. But it also means to hope for and strive for, like tzipisa l’yeshua. The briya hopes for and strives for that future that HKBH envisions for us.
However, there are two very different approaches to the Asid. One is where the Hoveh yields to the Asid, and one where the Asid yields to the hoveh. Or, to say it differently, one is where my sechel determines my future, versus one where my sechel is batel to HKBH’s vision of the future.
L’mahsal, a person develops an understanding of how the world operates, and from that understanding he formulates a projection of what’s going to be in the future. That is where the Asid yields to the Hoveh, meaning, this person feels the current situation of the world, that is the real metzius, and since that’s the metzius, let me see if I can shape the future based upon what I see. This person’s sechel creates the vision for the future. His asid is based on his Hoveh.
And this is a perfectly valid approach for mili d’alma. A businessman who foresees his market drying up in five years, so he diversifies his portfolio to protect himself. Or an investor who forecasts tomorrow’s market to better position his money today. Based upon his understanding of the hoveh, he creates a vision of the asid to serve his hoveh.
The problem is using this approach for d’varim ruchniyim. A person can feel happy with where he is now, but he detects a drive to become a greater person, a better person. That person’s own sechel would say “why rock the boat? Things are good the way they are.” But this person detects an Asid which is not arising from his own sechel. He know’s HKBH has a more elevated calling for him, and so he looks to see how to realize HKBH’s vision of his future.
But someone who feels his current self is the real metzius. The last thing he’d want to do is disrupt his metzius. When he looks to the future, anything that perpetuates his metzius, he welcomes, but anything that pushes him outside of his comfort zone, he devises tricks to avoid them. “Why do I need to extend myself – I’m happy with my current situation.” That person’s asid is meshubad to his hoveh.
Let’s give another mashal: a person looks at old age, and sees it’s debilitating effect on a person's guf. One person says, "How do I keep away from it? What can I do to make it not affect me?" Another person says, "What's the purpose of zikna if it wears the guf down? Zikna must be the tkufa of zichuch haguf, where the guf becomes less enslaved to physicality." Both of them have a vision of an Asid. But one is being led by his hoveh, and the other is being led by HKBH’s asid.
It’s incredible. A person can affirm Hakadosh Baruch Hu as the avar, that He created the world. A person can affirm Hakadosh Baruch Hu as the hoveh in the sense that Hakadosh Baruch Hu has a yediyah over everything is the world. But yet he can be kofer in the Yihyeh, that HKBH defines what the ideal state of every person is.
Nimtzinu l’meidim, that there are two ways of relating to the Asid. One is where my sechel determines my future, where the Asid yields to the hoveh. The other is where my sechel is batel to HKBH’s vision of the future, where my Hoveh yields to HKBH’s vision of the Asid.
This is the contrast between לחקור אחר העתידות versus התהלך עמו בתמימות ותצפה לו. There’s no problem with relating to the Asid. You’re supposed to be metzapeh! You’re just not supposed to be choker. לחקור אחר העתידות is where a person’s sechel is mishtalet: My hoveh projects my asidus. That’s not the asid that HKBH wants us to connect to. He sends us a Navi so we can see HKBH’s version of the Asid. And HKBH’s asid we cannot ignore.
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I want to be mishtamesh with this in two ofanim.
The first is a person growing up and maturing. A child lives entirely in the hoveh — asidus simply doesn’t exist for him; there’s no sense of responsibility for a future. The chinuch of a child is amost entirely in the hoveh: is this mutar, is this assur, is it bedieved, lechatchila. But the shaila of asidus — where is my life supposed to be headed — we’re barely taught at all.
And most people, when they finally do turn to the future, they turn to it as chakira: this is what I am, let me arrange the future to reinforce it. What should I do for parnassa, how should I go about buying a house? And so on. These are valid questions and approaches. The problem is the vision of the Asid stopped there, where it could’ve, and should’ve taken the person further. When a person’s looking to the future, is he asking himself what's the tachlis for my being in this world? “What is the tachlis Hakadosh Baruch Hu has for me — where ought I to be heading?” That is the t’chum of the asid, that is relating to HKBH as the Yihyeh on the briyah.
The second application is that we’re coming to Yomim Nora’im. On Rosh Hashanah we daven ובכן תן פחדך על כל מעשיך. We want to whole word to recognize Him. Really? I know I have a lot to daven for, but one thing which probably didn’t make your list is to worry about the goyim recognizing HKBH. Who are we kidding? But that’s not the correct histaklus. Rosh Hashanah is relating to all three aspects of HKBH, Haya, Hoveh, and Yihyeh.
The avar — Hakadosh Baruch Hu the shoresh ha’briah.
The hoveh — Hakadosh Baruch Hu has each individual pass before Him in judgement.
But most of all it’s yihyeh —אחד ושמו אחד. ביום ההוא יהיה ה’ . The whole briah has a future — a world that recongnizes HKBH is not just something happening to the goyim. It’s a realization of HKBH’s vision for the world. This is what we’re mispallel for on RH. I want to align, and I want the whole world to align to that tachlis.
תמים תהיה עם השם אלקיך. Does not mean “don’t think about the future.” Farkert — it means think about it in HKBH’s terms. ותצפה לו Envision it, hope and strive for it, and let it call you toward the person you are meant to become.
Good Shabbos!