Shelach 5759 – The Avodos of Yedi’ah and Bechira

The Avodos of Yedi’ah and Bechira

A paraphrased shiur of Rabbi Ahron Lopiansky

In the history of Klal Yisrael, we have the two great aveiros: Cheit Ha'Egel and the Cheit HaMeraglim. One gave us Shiva Asar B'Tammuz; the other, Tisha B'Av. They both needed the yud-gimmel middos to remedy. These are very severe aveiros. The Cheit Ha'Egel, we understand it’s severity – it was k’eiyn avodah zara at none-other-than Ma’amad Har Sinai. It struck at the very shoresh of Klal Yisrael's Emunah. But the Cheit HaMeraglim is not clear where it’s severity is. Eretz Yisrael is certainly a davar chashuv, yet it does not seem on par with cheit ha’egel. What is the tochen of this aveirah?

We know the cheit was lashon hara on the land, which is bad. But, again, it’s severity is not clear The meraglim were sent with explicit instructions: go see the land, assess its strength and character — ha-tova im ra'ah, ha-chazakah ha-refuyah, ha-me'at im-rav. And, lema'aseh, they fulfilled their mission. They came back with a report. They observed exactly what they were told to observe. They reported exactly what they saw. Where, then, was the cheit?

And even the instruction to send the meraglim is puzzling. Hakadosh Baruch Hu told Moshe: shelach lecha — mida'atcha, at your discretion. Normally a tzivui is a command, telling you what to do. Here the instruction essentially says "use your own judgment." That's a very strange tzivui – you’re commanded to decide for yourself. It needs biyur.

When we speak about HKBH’s hashgacha, His yachas to the ma’ase y’dei Adam, we use the formulation of the Mishna in Avos: הַכֹּל צָפוּי, וְהָרְשׁוּת נְתוּנָה and the Rambam frames it as the paradox between yediya and bechira.¹

Hakol tzafui is where everything is destined and known. We relate to HKBH as an absolute, singular metzius — there is nothing else, all of reality is only Hakadosh Baruch Hu’s Ratzon. This is Anochi Hashem Elokecha, ain od milvado. This description engenders a sense of hisbatlus to HKBH. Since there’s nothing but HKBH, all other kochos, including a person’s own kochei hanefesh are efes, shut off, batel, and the person lives in pure trust that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is zan umefarneis hakol without the need for ma’aseh adam.

But we also have a totally different description of HKBH’s yachas where HKBH lets and even invites ma’aseh y’dei adam to do and accomplish in this world. This is hareshus nesunah, the arena given over to bechiras adam. Within that arena, a person has to act as though everything depends on his ma’ase yadayim: im ein ani li mi li. If I don't sit and learn, I won't know. If I don't give tzedakah, the poor man will starve.

Consider two types of people. The first has achieved pure bitachon in the style of Novardok: he opens up his window, puts out two bins and leaves a note reading "this bin is for milchigs, this is for fleishigs" and he waits for Hakadosh Baruch Hu to provide. That is a certainly a madreigah — but, in a sense, it stifles the kochei hanefesh of a person. Ambition is extinguished. The drive to build, plan, and earn has been silenced. The second person must roll up his sleeves. He must go into business, compete for customers. He must be charif and entrepreneurial, because that is the nature of teva. And precisely because those kochei hanefesh are alive and active, he faces a completely different challenge in his emunah. This person sees, or rather feels that reshus nesunah is a stira to yediyah. This domain is "mine," Hakadosh Baruch Hu has no presence here, it’s a makom where HKBH isn’t. He has not denied Hakadosh Baruch Hu entirely, but he has emptied Him from a chelek of the beriah. That is a serious pgam b'emunah.

But which is it? Do my ma’asim produce or are my ma’asim not needed?

The teretz is in recognizing Hareshus Nesuna. That your kochos, your drive, your ambition which you call yours, is really nesuna, a matana from HKBH. You learn to see, to feel there is a source giving you your ability to do, enabling your ma’asim to accomplish.

The nisayon of the Akeidah was the prototype for this. Avraham Avinu had built his entire relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu through da'as — through a mind attuned to emes, through sevaros and perception so refined that kilyo'sav na'asu k'shnei rabbanim. His da'as had become Torahdik. Now Hakadosh Baruch Hu handed him a command that violated every principle of his da'as. It was wrong on every count. And the test was not to extinguish the da'as — it was to carry both: to use the da'as, to let it operate cheshbonos, but at it’s limit, just recognize that the da'as itself was given.

There’s a vort from the Izhbitzer on a Chazal. Chazal say that שלשה בדקן הקדוש ברוך הוא ומצאן עביט של מי רגליים. HKBH was bodek 3 people and found them to be a wastepan. A very sharp critique! Hakadosh Baruch Hu asked Kayin where his brother was, HKBH asked Bilam who those men were, and HKBH ask Chizkiyahu Hamelech who his visitors where, and they all gave unsatisfactory answers. The Izhbitzer asks what was unsatisafactory? Maybe Kayin’s sounded m’chutzaf, but bilam and Chizakyu both answered straight forward – these people where sent to me. What’s so bad about those answers? What should they have said?²

So he explains that HKBH was not asking questions for information. The question itself was creating a makom of reshus for a person to act. When Hakadosh Baruch Hu asks, He is saying: this chelek of the beriah is yours to act in. And when a person acts, they need to use the entirety of the reshus nesuna, all their drive, all their kochos, but it also needs to include the recognition that the reshus itself was nesuna. The correct response, says the Izhbitzter, was what Yechezkel said when Hakadosh Baruch Hu asked him whether the dry bones could live. Yechezkel answered Atah yadata. You, HKBH have the yediya. In other words: the question is mine to grapple with, and I will use all my kochot to solve it, but in the end, atah yadata. I acknowledge the yedi’ah that enabled the reshus.³

Those who answered Hakadosh Baruch Hu's question as if it were just a question — treating the reshus as a kli to be filled with their own da'as adam and nothing more — that is the avit shel mei raglayim. A kli is supposed to be filled with something good, something of value and substance. When it gets filled only with ma'aseh adam that doesn't acknowledge the yediyah, the kli, the space for reshus, has been degraded.

These two perspectives of HKBH’s involvement were illustrated at two key events in Jewish History. Ma'amad Har Sinai was the giluy of the first level — the emunah in Hakadosh Baruch Hu as the only metzius. שור לא גָּעָה, ציפור לא צָפְצַף — the entire world stood still, because that is what a giluy of ein od milvado looks like. The Dor Hamidbar lived in that world: mon from shomayim, the amud eish and anan, no plowing and no reaping, no makom for ma’ase bnei adam.⁴

However, Hakadosh Baruch Hu's wanted Klal Yisroel to live with a deeper Emunah. What the sefarim call “emunaso b'soch umnuso” Emunah thru your efforts and endeavors. Klal Yisrael needs to come to Eretz Yisrael and live in a world of charisha v'zri'ah and milchamos, and yet still hear and feel the same emes they heard at Sinai. לֹא יִהְיֶה לְךָ אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים — live with with all the kochos hateva flowing through you, the plow in your hand and the sword at your side but feel the true source of those kochos.

This was Klal Yisrael's nisayon now. They were a Dor De'ah. They had heard Anochi Hashem Elokecha, they knew full well that hakol tzafu’i. that HKBH is fully in control. But, at the moment of knisa la’aretz, at that moment HKBH is introducing hareshus nesuna. It’s hafladik! The tzivu’i itself was shlach l’cha, m’daytecha! HKBH said, I’m stepping back and creating a makom for your input. Use your da’as. Use your bechira.

And the maraglim used their da’as. And they saw what seemed accurate — powerful nations, enormous fortresses, and, al pi teva, how difficult it can be. Their error was not in their observation. It was in thinking that what their da’as concluded must be the final say. When a person says, "I have examined this from every angle and this is the emes," he has forgotten that his instrument of examination was itself granted. His microscope — his sechel — comes from somewhere else. Your da'as is not your starting point. The source of your da’as is.

And Hakadosh Baruch Hu's response in the wake of the cheit is b’diyuk. וְאוּלָם חַי אָנִי וְיִמָּלֵא כְבוֹד ה' אֶת כָּל הָאָרֶץ. The Meraglim now thought השמים שמים לה’ והארץ נתן לבני אדם. There’s a makom for Hashem, and there’s a makom for bnei adam, where HKBH has pulled back and given us our space. Hakadosh Baruch Hu’s response is that the kevod Hashem still fills the aretz.⁵

In avodas adam, the two chalakim — reshus and yediyah — coexist and are real. In the world of mitzvos, or parnassa, or every area that a person can exert himself, a person cannot say "whatever Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants will happen anyway." “If Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants to have a lulav and an esrog, well, he’ll make sure that they’ll grow in my backyard. If not, it’s his problem.” There’s no such thing chas veshalom. That is not emunah — that is abdicating avodah entirely, and is morally corrosive. Ha’aretz nisan livnei adam, and a person has a chiyuv to fill it. The world of nature, calculation, effort and hishtadlus is real, one's sweat and sechel and achrayus are real. And when a person acts, his kochos have to flow as if he’s oblivious to hakol tazafui.

But once a person has done everything in his power — broke his head on a gemara, davened with Kavanah, plowed his kochos into his business and into making good decisions — the sof davar has to be hakol tzafui. That means no frustration that the results aren't what you wanted, no anger that your efforts didn't produce the expected outcome. Hakol Tzafu’i is real. Your cheshbonos, whether they were done correctly or incorrectly, have a source that is tzafu’i. It needs to be acknowledged and respected.

And certainly when a person’s actions flirt with issurim. The nisayon of really trying to be matzliyach, and there’s a moment when a dishonest gain is within reach, or a competitor can be pushed out through means that maybe, maybe are halachically permitted but seem wrong – you’re so close. It is the avodah of a person who has not shut off his kochos, he still has his drive, but he must stop there, he must feel both worlds at the same time. Reshus nesuna, but hakol Tzafui. He must work as though everything depends on him, and stop at the line, knowing it all depends on Hakadosh Baruch Hu. That is a very real, very deep nisayon.

This is the depth that HKBH wants us to develop b’knisaseinu la’aretz. Our makom that HKBH wants us to have in this world, is not a place void of Him, is not for the people who just say v’ha’aretz nasan l’vnei adam, but rather for those who understand that even their reshus is nesuna, and therefore can understand חַי אָנִי וְיִמָּלֵא כְבוֹד ה' אֶת כָּל הָאָרֶץ

Good Shabbos!