Nasso 5775 – The Kedusha within Your Money

There’s a small parsha among the larger parshios, and that is Shevuos HaPikadon. If a person denies that he owes a debt and swears falsely about it, he is obligated to repay the principal, add a chomesh, and bring a korban.

It’s a repeat of a parsha in Vayikra, everything is the same, but there’s a new nekuda in this parsha, called Gezel HaGer. If a person steals from someone without yorshim. Other than that, it’s the same.

Be’etzem it’s a choshen mishpat parsha, about gezel and denying it. Yet, if you look at the dinim, it seems more than that.

1. First of all: the Torah calls this Ma'al baShem — a form of meilah, which is stealing from hekdesh. But here we’re not dealing with hekdesh – it’s a person who stole from a plain Jew and swore falsely about it. How does that become meilah?

• You may say it’s the shvu’a that makes it meilah, but that just strengthens the question. In ordinary gzeila, the whole din is bein adam lachaveiro: I took your money, I need to give it back. In a regular shevua, the issur is between me and Hakadosh Baruch Hu: I used His name, I need a kapparah. But here the two issurim merged into a new category of issur. Why? Gezel is Gezel, Shvu’a is Shvu’a. Just keep them separate.

1. Second: there’s a chomesh added. Chomesh is an inyan exclusively associated with kodesh. You find it in terumah, ma'aser sheini, meilah, hekdesh. It has no place in an ordinary din gzeila. So why is it here?
2. Third: Here, in Gezel HaGer, if there are no yorshim, the money goes to kohanim — it’s like cherem kohanim, like hekdesh.
3. Fourth: the return of Gezel HaGer may not be done at night, because it is k'ein korban.

So, even though the parsha is a parsha of gezel, however it looks, feels, and operates like hekdesh. What’s the hesber?

So we need to understand mamonus at a much deeper level.

The Baal Shem Tov has a remarkable vort on the pasuk in Tehillim 107, re'evim gam tzme'im bahem tis'atef nafsham. “Their souls are wrapped in hunger and thirst.” He says: the hunger and thirst that people have in the briah is the physical representation of something much deeper. Every nefesh has a particular tachlis, a particular tikkun it needs to perform — and the hunger and thirst that a person feels, is really the drive and ambition of the nefesh reaching for the nekuda in the briah that only it can fix.

He has a similar vort on chein makom al yoshvav — the pull a person feels toward a particular place — the Baal Shem Tov says that Hakadosh Baruch Hu plants a magnetic draw on a person to a place – whether for parnassa purposes or other reasons – because that is the makom where his avoda is meant to be done, that place has a nekuda that only he can be mesaken.

There’s a braisa in Semachos that says everyday there is a bas kol that goes out: bas ploni l’ploni, bayis ploni l'ploni, mamon ploni l'ploni — this money belongs to this person.¹

What Chazal are saying is that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is koveia the mamon of the briah to each person. Hakadosh Baruch Hu placed each person in the world with a tafkid — and He allocated specific nekudos in the briah, specific chafatzim, for that person to bring to their shleimus. Those nechasim are the nekudos in the briah that are yours to bring back to Hakadosh Baruch Hu.

This is pshat in Ve'ahavta es Hashem Elokecha, bchol l’vavcha, bchol nafshecha, uvchol me’odecha. What is bchol me’odecha adding? I understand bechol levavecha and bechol nafshecha. B’chol l’vavcha means with all your ratzonos, your deepest drives. B’chol nafshecha means all of your life, you gotta give up everything. L’chora that covers everything – What more is being added with the third leg, B’chol me’odecha? The answer is bechol meodecha means with the entirety of all the nekudos in the briah that Hakadosh Baruch Hu designated for you. It’s outside of you, but it’s m’yuchad and m’yu’ad for you to bring out and elevate. It’s like the 3rd leg of the Mesilas Yesharim that we’ve discussed before – when you serve Hashem, you elevate the whole world with you – all the nekudos in the briya that are waiting for you to elevate them.

In this regard, everything in the world is a form of Hekdesh. Just as hekdesh has Shem Hashem on it, so too does every cheftza in the briah —Hakadosh Baruch Hu placed His yichud on it, His designation of who is its ba'al. Mamom ploni l’ploni!

Nimtzinu lmeidim, that Mamonus is not merely a bein adam lachaveiro concern. the baalus, the ownership, has in itself a deep bein adam laMakom dimension.

When a person steals and is nishba lasheker, something far more than ordinary gzeila has happened. This mamon had Shem Hashem chakuk on it — Hakadosh Baruch Hu had designated it for Reuven. By stealing and then swearing falsely, the thief is not just taking Reuven's money. He is attempting to uproot the Shem Hashem that was chakuka into this item. He’s making a shvua b’shem – in essence saying that Hakadosh Baruch Hu, designate this for me, not for Reuven. It’s the hefech of the yesod of mammon. It’s mammon hekdesh – HKBH designated it for him, not for you! That is ma'al baShem. That is meilah.

Gezel HaGer highlights that this mamonus belongs to kodesh be'etzem. When a ger dies with no yorshim, the money doesn't simply become hefker. It belongs to kohanim, just like cherem and hekdesh. Because the ger's having it was just a shlucha d'Rachmana — he was simply the custodian designated for it. If the custodian is gone, it reverts like any mamon hekdesh.

This is a very different hashkafa on mamonus. It’s no secret inyanei mammonus is one of the biggest nisayonos of our dor.

A person always wishes they could have more money or stuff. The more I have the greater I am. And I don’t have, then I have a tayna: “Why does this person have this and I don't? If anything, I need or deserve it more than he does!” Those feelings start with the assumption that I have a shaychus to everything, and it’s not fair that it’s being withheld from me.

And we sometimes try to pacify ourselves by saying “I guess Hashem knows better. He has a Cheshbon.” We chalk it up to yisurim.

But the Torah hashkafa is the opposite: Hakadosh Baruch Hu placed me in the world, gave me a tafkid, and allocated the nekudos in the briah that are mine to be mesaken. Mamon ploni l'ploni! This is not a passive bitachon of “oh well.” It’s a sense of achrayus. I have a tafkid, and HKBH has given me the keilim to do this tafkid. Everything in the briah has an address. The fact that it has an address means it is kodesh laHashem. If I take something that's not mine, I am b’emes at loggerheads with Hakadosh Baruch Hu.

We are all re’avim gam tzame’im to fulfill our tafkid. It’s true, nowadays we don’t have Nevi’im to tell us directly what our tafkid is, but Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives us clues along the way. We have chein makom al yoshvav. We have the areas of life that we’re being matzli’ach in. And even before you identify your tafkid, the search itself is gufa your avoda.

But someone else’s mammon? someone else’s tafkid? – that’s not shayich to you b’etzem.

The Chofetz Chaim once saw a gevir coming to the very early minyan – a minyan for the Tzaddikim and Rabbanim of the city, and wasn’t happy with it. He felt this man, instead of seeing his tafkid as providing the financial support for the Tzibbur, would convert into saying more Tehillim and becoming the town tzaddik. He called him over and said: deserting your army is not only by leaving the army. It’s also by leaving your post. If a submarine commander decides to pilot an airplane, that is also desertion. Being true to your calling means manning the post that was assigned to you, and not going to someone else’s post.

Mammanus strikes at the root of the Briya. HKBH created a world where everything was assigned to destination – to each person to do what HKBH asks of him to do. A person's tafkid in life is to be a gizbar ne’eman of hekdesh — to identify and elevate every nekuda that was entrusted to him. Not to be ma’al, Chas v'shalom, and claim a chelek that’s not his.

When a person sees the briya correctly, they see they have a tafkid, they feel their inner drive to be a gizbar ne’eman, re’avim gam tzame’im l’asos ratzon Hashem, and ultimately they fulfill V’ahavta es Hashem Elokecha, b’chol levavcha, u’vchol nafshecha, u’vchol me’odecha!

Gut Shabbos!