The parsha starts with Nedarim, and is introduced with the passuk:
זֶה הַדָּבָר אֲשֶׁר צִוָּה יְהֹוָה:
Bamidbar 30:2
Rashi brings Chazal that “Zeh Hadavar” is meyuchad to Moshe.
זה הדבר. משה נתנבא בכה אמר ה' (שמות יא, ד), והנביאים נתנבאו בכה אמר ה', מוסף עליהם משה שנתנבא בלשון זה הדבר
Rashi, Bamidbar 30:2
Moshe is different from other Nevi’im because he’s misnabeh b’Zeh while they’re only misnabeh with Koh. This is a fundamental chiluk between Moshe and other Nevi’im — so it’s strange that Chazal state it specifically here, by nedarim. You’d think it would belong in Parshas Beha’aloscha, by לא כן עבדי משה. Why mention it here by Nedarim?
And l’maaseh what is the difference between Zeh and Koh?
The Maharal explains the chiluk. He says: those inyanim where Hakadosh Baruch Hu is mechadesh davar be'olamo like a neis, an event, those can only be given with koh amar Hashem. However those inyanim that are a seder kavua be'olam, those are the things that are given with zeh hadavar.
It’s not clear what he means, and what that has to do with Zeh and Koh, and what shaychus to our parsha of Nedarim.
So let’s be masbir.
If we were asked “what’s the tachlis of avodas adam?” we’d probably say: do the mitzvos, avoid the aveiros.
Very nice, but that’s an incomplete answer. B’Emes, when HKBH created the briya, He did so with dibbur. Vayomer E-lokim, Hu Amar vayehi. However, HKBH’s dibburim actually have layers of hisgalus. Some are revealed in their final form right away. — He made a rock, and the rock simply is; His ratzon reached complete fruition. Other things Hashem placed into the world only as a dibur, a tzivui but it’s up to Adam to bring it to fruition. “gidilin taaseh lach,” and man has to go make the tzitzis. Man is born arel, and the tzivui of milah is only completed l’maaseh by the person himself. In other words, HKBH’s words come in stages, from Ratzon down to tangible reality, and adam’s tachlis is to bridge them — to bring Ratzon and Dibur down into metzius.
This is what it means that adam is called a medaber. It’s not simply that he communicates — even animals signal each other just as well as any person could. The difference is this: in the natural world — domem, tzomeach, chai —only the maaseh is real. Dibur has no metzius at all. If you said you’d build something and didn’t, that’s not a problem in their world, because only ma’aseh is viewed as real. But for Adam, dibur itself is supposed to become a metzius. Hu amar vayehi! An empty dibbur completely betrays Adam’s tzura as a m’daber!
This is why the Rabbeinu Yonah calls emes m’yesodei hanefesh. Emes is not just a nice midah, but fundamental to what a person is. Because a person whose dibur doesn’t convey a metzius, or doesn’t become a metzius, has failed in his capacity as a medaber.
This is related to the Targum on לא תוכל לאכל בשעריך – “lo suchal” the Targum renders it leis lach reshu, “you have no permission.” But that’s not what the passuk says. The passuk says “lo suchal!” You can’t do it. If HKBH says you have no permission, then for Adam that means “you can’t do it.” The d’var Hashem is a metzius.
There’s the famous Kotzker vort: when the shamash said someone stole the Rebbe’s coat, the Rebbe asked, “stole? — it says lo signov!” HKBH’s words are not empty. They’re a metzius.
Nowhere is this dibur-becoming-metzius sharper than in nedarim. Nedarim are called a hafla’ah, a word that means both “to be explicit” – like by a nazir where the hafla’ah means b’feirush – and it also means “a wonder” a pele. Both are true: a neder takes something that is not yet part of a person’s metzius — an idea, a wish, a private ratzon — and, by articulating it with specificity, it turns it into a metzius as solid as a table.
The Mishna in Chagigah speaks about different chelkei Torah. Some chelkei Torah are described as harrim hateluyim besaar, which means you have a lot of halachos, a lot of Torah she’bal peh, that are derived and rest upon very little torah she’bichsav, a mere few pesukim.
But, in contrast it says התרת נדרים פורחין באויר. Hataras nedarim have no torah she’bichsav. In other words hattaras nedarim is where the metzius and the tochen became completely disjunct. That’s what allowed for the hetter of the neder. A person’s words are supposed to have a metzius because there should’ve been a da’as behind it that gives it a metzius. התרת נדרים פורחין באויר means that that neder had nothing to be someich on. That’s why we could be mattir it – it was mechulal m’ikara.
The Gemara tells that Shimon HaTzaddik only ate the korban nazir once – it was the korban of a nezirus that came from an emes-rooted ratzon to grow — not a nezirus taken out of anger, or to prove a point, because those hargeshim don’t last, they don’t have a kiyum, and they don’t become a metzius for the person. Something not anchored in emes, not rooted in a metzius, does not have a kiyum. it’s a neder mechulal from the moment it was said because it wasn’t anchored in the person’s sense of emes.
This is why the parsha of Nedarim is where Zeh HaDavar is revealed. We mentioned the Maharal’s chiluk: passing, temporal events can only be transmitted as Koh Amar Hashem. However those inyanim that are a seder kavua be'olam, those are the things that are given with zeh hadavar.
The hesber it like we said: If something is a temporal, passing metzius, then you can’t build a solid metzius on it. It’s like trying to formulate a world-view on shifting pieces. You’ll feel the pieces only vaguely work together, but over time it’ll evolve and you’ll have no remnant of the original.
Rebbi once heard a Chassidish vertl to “quote-unquote” knock the Litvish. It says the the Chassid wants to know what Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants, and the Litvak wants to know what the Shulchan Aruch wants.
It seems like a sharp shtuch, but if anything, it’s a self-defeating shtuch. Because it may be true ,but what the Shulchan Aruch wants, everybody knows. What Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants, there’s a lot of different opinions on that. When you start with what Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants, that’s very, very tricky. That's not a tangible thing. So if you want to know the derech ha-yasharah, if you start with the Shulchan Aruch, you know that you started right.
Halachaos and Mitzvos come from zeh ha-davar. They are the fixed metzius. You can be dan and lomed and makish and mafrich and metaretz and and make chalukos, anything you want because it’s build a seder kavu’a ba’olam.
But if your starting point is Koh amar, then the binyan is pore’ach ba’avir.
That's why zeh ha-davar is nisgaleh in our parsha. Because Nedarim is the parsha where we see dibburim become a metzius. They becomes a metzius because they’re rooted in a deep hanhaga kavu’ah b’Adam. The gilluy that there's a type of nevuah called zeh ha-davar, that the devar Hashem becomes a metzius, you see it because we have a mitzvah of of nedarim.
L’ma’aseh – since we're dealing with the inyan of how things become le-ma'aseh.
The first thing is a person has to understand the only way in which machshava, ratzonos, goals, aspirations, things become a reality is if they're seen by the person as emes. If it’s just a one-time inspirational high, it won’t have a kiyum. As a person matures, he learns to discern what hergershim were just random flashes of inspiration. But if a person has tasted that hergesh again and again, then it’s more than just temporal. Then there’s a chance that it was become fixed in the person’s inner world. That is worth pursuing.
But the second take-away is Lo yacheil d’varo, k’pshuto. Doing what you said. This isn’t mesirus nefesh for a nice midah; it’s the ikar tzuras adam. If you said you’re going to do something, you do it, no matter what. It shouldn’t require a mussar shmuess with Koh Amar Hashem. It’s a metzius. It’s tzuras HaAdam!
Rebbi’s shver, zichrono livracha, who came from a very litvishe home, had almost no capacity for long mussar shmuessen about reward and punishment. When something had to be done, his entire response was: ich veis, m’muz — “It has to get done’. There was nothing more to say — the same way there’s nothing to discuss about why you can’t walk through a brick wall. Sometimes all our dibburim and meshalim, however inspiring, water down what should be an absolute metzius into just another idea to be discussed.
That’s the avodah of bein Hazmanim and Chodesh Menachem Av. We have tasks and avodos that are different from our usual seder. We have to motivate ourselves to follow thru. You don’t have to make kabbalos, but we just need to see that our avoda is not a passing, inconsistent chore. It’s not porchos ba’avir. But a revelation of a deeper value system, which will get stronger until they eventually become our metzius.
Good Shabbos!