B’ha’aloscha 5768 – B’chol Beisi Ne’eman

A paraphrased shiur of Rabbi Ahron Lopiansky

In Parshas Beha'aloscha we have a parsha that is me'ikrei hadas mitsad yesodei hatorah and also very shoreshdike mitsad avoda. We have the tayna of Aharon and Miriam regarding Moshe Rabbeinu being poreish minishto. Why should Moshe be poresh, they tayna’ed.

Hakadosh Baruch Hu responded:

שִׁמְעוּ נָא דְבָרַי אִם יִהְיֶה נְבִיאֲכֶם ה' בַּמַּרְאָה אֵלָיו אֶתְוַדָּע בַּחֲלוֹם אֲדַבֶּר בּוֹ

לֹא כֵן עַבְדִּי מֹשֶׁה בְּכָל בֵּיתִי נֶאֱמָן הוּא

Bamidbar 12:6–7

So Hakadosh Baruch Hu is answering their tayna of poresh m’ishto by saying: bechol beisi ne'eman hu.

How does that answer their tayna?

We know Moshe Rabbeinu was qualitatively different than all other nevi’im. The Rambam learns from this parsha all the differences between nevuas Moshe and all other nevuos — no meshalim, his guf is not mizdaze'a, he can get nevu’a at any time, and so on. But what does any of this have to do with their tayna of Poresh m’ishto?

I can hear that he's always got to be available for nevu’ah, so that would be a reason to be poresh. But HKBH doesn’t say that here. Instead he says b’chol beisi ne’eman. I want to understand how that answers their tayna.

And then the pasuk adds:

וְהָאִישׁ מֹשֶׁה עָנָיו מְאֹד מִכֹּל הָאָדָם אֲשֶׁר עַל פְּנֵי הָאֲדָמָה

Bamidbar 12:3

Hakadosh Baruch Hu is me'id on his anivus. But, again, how does this address their tayna? What does anava have to do with poresh m’ishto?

Also, is the Torah just stam giving out complements to Moshe Rabbeinu? Or is there a kesher between anava and ne'emanus? It’s not clear what the kesher between the two is? A person can be a ba'al gaiva and be still be ne’eman, can’t he? Or a person can be an anav but not be a ne’eman. So it’s not clear what the kesher between anava and ne’emanus is.

B’chlal, what does the word ne'eman really mean? That he keeps his word? He’s reliable? L’mashal, in the bracha of Techias Hameisim we say ונאמן אתה להחיות מתים. HKBH is a ne’eman. What is ne'emanus by Hakadosh Baruch Hu? When we say a person is ne'eman, it usually is that a person kept their word despite there being a reason not to. L’mahsal, I said I would do the job for you, but someone else offered me more money to do the job, so there my ne’emanus is that I kept my word despite having a reason to cancel. But that’s only shayich by basar v’dam, where they have competing interests that they have to overcome to be ne’eman. What shaychus does that have to HKBH? He has no competing interests, no nisyonos — so what does the word ne'eman mean k'lapei shamaya?

So let's be masbir this.¹

When people do things, whatever it is they do, there’s usually a motivation, a reason for why they’re doing it.

L’mashal, Let's say I ask somebody to do a job for me. If he says he’s going to do it, then I assume it’ll get done. I mean, why shouldn’t it get done?

The teretz is if we examine the motivation, the reason why the person’s doing it, in the motivation I can already detect why the person wouldn’t do it.

So, back to our example – it could be the person won’t follow thru because he was motivated by money. I was willing to pay him $100, but he found another job that’ll pay him $200. So, I can understand why the person wouldn’t do it. If I can knock out the drive, the motivation, the reason why someone does something, m’meyla he won’t do it.

And this applies to any nekuda chitzona of a person. Anything motivated by a nekuda chitzona, something that doesn’t touch the atzmius of a person, can be trumped by either finding something else more exciting, more motivating, or the opposite, by simply reframing that thing as not so important anymore, and m’meyla the person’s motivation dissipates.

And there are degrees. In every person's metzius there is the kavua and there are variables. The most kavu’ah-dik element in a person’s metzius is themselves — my own chiyus, my own kiyum. That trumps everything. Everything else exists on a spectrum: the things that hit closer to my metzius, the more firmly I am attached to them; the further it is from my metzius, the more arai they are and the less I am attached to them.

For instance: A person may be a big bal chessed, and very happy to help people out. But if the chessed becomes too demanding, then the person may rethink their motivation. I was doing this because I feel good helping people, but I no longer feel good because it’s become so demanding. Now we can understand why he’s not doing so much chessed. It wasn’t as much a drive to do chessed as it was a drive to feel good about himself. Once the reason is gone, m’mayla the chessed is gone.

But then take a parent’s chessed for their child. It’s not chessed to make the parent feel good. It’s because the parent sees and feels their own metzius in their child, and their motivation comes from their atzmius. Hakadosh Baruch Hu says הֲתִשְׁכַּח אִשָּׁה עוּלָהּ — can a woman forget her child? Almost never, because the pri bitnah is viewed as her very self. The child is not viewed as a nekuda chitzona that she can simply say I’m no longer interested. She and her child are one metzius, and b'meila there's no makom for her to lose her motivation.

That is what ne'emanus means at its deepest level. Unwavering.

There’s a posuk in Yeshaya: ותקעתיו יתד במקום נאמן. The peg was affixed in a makom ne’eman. What’s a makom n’eman? The Targum there say neeman is kayumei. Something firm and immovable. Something that exists, and has a kiyum. The metzius of ne'emanus is the kiyum of something. You tapped into the part of the thing that doesn’t move. But if you only tap a nekuda chitzona, it’s a variable which is arai, and it doesn't have a kiyum.²

When we think of ordinary ne'emanus, we’re usually describing a ne’emanus to a nekuda chitzona. I promised to take you to the doctor, and despite my own rethinking, I showed up. That degree of ne'emanus is good, but there was clearly a gap – I wanted one direction and my commitment was pulling in the other direction. I overcame it, but that gap is the makom which creates the potential for ne’emanus to be compromised.

This parsha is introducing us to b’chol beisi ne’eman. A ne'emanus not of overcoming my opposing interests, but a ne’emanus because I have no opposing interests. The nekuda touches my metzius, my atzmius, to such a point where it’s no longer viewed as separate from me, and b’mayla there’s no ability for something else to undermine my motivation.

This is the darga of Moshe Rabbeinu. By other Navi’im the d’var Hashem was a nekuda chitzona. All the differences the Rambam says between Moshe Rabbeinu and other nevi’im hinged on this nekuda – how much the d’var Hashem was either a davar chitzoni or a davar atzmi. The other nevi’im their bodies couldn’t tolerate the nevu’ah. It was foreign to them. It came in mashalim. A mashal is always needed to describe something foreign to the listener. I don't need a mashal to tell you about something you are already very familiar with. Ruchniyus is something that starts off m’bachutz for everyone. A child doesn’t know ruchniyus. They just know their physical body and the ta’avos that come along with that. Nevuah was Hakadosh Baruch Hu opening up a world of ruchnius that was not shayach to a ben adam. And b'meila, their nevuah was temporary.

Moshe Rabbeinu was different. As the Rambam says: niskashera da'ato beTzur Ha'Olamim. Moshe's etzem metzius became Torah, The inyan of ruchnius was no longer outside him and flowing in — it was him. He identified with the dvar Hashem to the point where there was no gap between his interests and HKBH’s.³

This is also why anava and ne'emanus are the same inyan here and not two separate middos. In order for Torah and Hakadosh Baruch Hu to became Moshe's metzius, that can only happen if there is no competing metzius — no self — claiming that space. The moment there is a self with its own agenda, there is a gap between my interest and His. If there is any gaiva, any metzius of self, then ultimately that self will be the kavua and kvod shamayim will be the variable. Anava is not just one of the nice midos tovos of Moshe Rabbeinu. It is prerequisite for complete ne'emanus.

This also explains the tefillah of ונאמן אתה להחיות מתים. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is chayim — ואתם הדבקים בה' אלהיכם חיים כולכם היום — chiyus is what Hakadosh Baruch Hu is, kaveyachol. B'meila, ונאמן אתה להחיות מתים means it's not a promise He is working to keep despite difficulties. It flows from what He is. That is ne'emanus — the metzius of Hakadosh Baruch Hu is chai, and techias hameisim is the natural hemshech of that metzius.

Ne’emanus is the kiyum of Torah itself — זאת התורה לא תהא מוחלפת. What makes Toras Moshe is nitzchi not just because it came from Shamayim. But because Moshe Rabbeinu introduced ne’emanus in Torah. His metzius was Torah. And therefore it’s not a variable that can be muchlefes.

When we talk about shteiging and growth in ruchniyus, we tend to measure growth from the outside. How much did I learn? How many blatt? How many mitzvos? But that’s a nekuda chitzona.

A talmid of the Brisker Rav told over that a tochecha that the Rav gave. He said: talmidim today have a much longer sedarim than the talmidim of old used to have. But once they close the Gemara, their heads are out of it. The old talmidim had a shorter sedarim, but the Rambam was always dreying in their heads.

What is the world you occupy? When the sefer is closed, where is your mind? Is there something that is more interesting? That grabs your attention more readily and easily?

During a bein hazmanim when external frameworks, social chiyuvim, go away — what’s left? If I connected deeply with my learning, then I shouldn't be able to go a day without it — I’d feel empty without it. If it really became part of the person's metzius, then I can't not learn. I don’t have to force myself to learn, it’s simply ki heim chayeinu.

This is certainly related to emunah, which is a reflection of ne'emanus. We know we have to push ourselves to do the right thing, and we hear stories of people who pushed themselves to do extraordinary things. And when we see that we marvel about how great their Emunah is. However, emunah at a deeper level is not something you have to push yourself for. It’s simply your metzius, ki heim chayeinu. Fakhert, if you need to fight for it, it suggests it’s something out of the ordinary for you. People, as they get older, becomes stronger ma'amin b’teva, because through a long life of seeing the yad Hashem, and revisiting truths that he learned over and over again, the emunah becomes poshut. It becomes the metzius, not the extraordinary.

The real measure of a person, in nitzchiyus-dike terms, in techias hameisim terms, in chai v'kayam terms, is: how much did it become the person himself? And kifi whatever darga of ruchnius really became him — that is his chelek in bechol beisi ne'eman hu.

Good Shabbos!