Skip to main content

The Power of Generosity - Parashat Naso 5778 - May, 25, 2018


This week’s parasha, Parashat Nasso, presents the law of the sotah – a wife whose husband has become suspicious that she has had an extra-marital affair.

The Torah teaches, in summary, that such a husband would bring his wife to the kohen and offer a korban-a minchat kena’ot. Subsequently, the kohen has the woman drink this offering together with other ingredients to miraculously test the woman’s fidelity: if she had been unfaithful, she and her paramour would die. If, however, she had been faithful, she would be blessed to conceive a child from her husband.
One interpretive technique that our chachamim use in service of understanding the Chumash is semichoot haparshiyot – lessons to be learned from the juxtaposition of sections of the Torah. Often, particularly in the more narrative sections of the Torah, the connection between one section of the Torah and the next requires no explanation. For example, the episode surrounding the destruction of Sedom is immediately preceded by Avraham’s pleading with Hashem on behalf of the city. This type of juxtaposition requires no explanation – the narrative is seamless. However, there are other sections of the Torah, often the more halachic sections, that seemingly jump from one unrelated topic to another. It is for these sections that our chachamim often use the technique of semichoot haparshiyot to elucidate the Torah.

The aforementioned passage concerning the sotah is preceded by a presentation of laws related to gifts made to a kohen – specifically, that gifts, such as terumah, that a person is obligated to give to a kohen must, in fact, be given to the kohen and become his property. Our chachamim ask why the Torah juxtaposes the section regarding gifts to a kohen and the seemingly unrelated section regarding the law of the sotah. Using the technique of semichoot haparshiyot, the gemara in Masechet Berachot (63a) explains that a person who does not give obligatory gifts to the kohen will eventually require a kohen to intervene on behalf of his marriage – through the law of sotah.

This statement by our Rabbis, that denying the kohen his due will lead a person to need a kohen certainly carries an ironic and literary flair. However, how does this phenomenon occur?

The author of Torah Temimah, Rabbi Baruch Epstein HaLevy, explains that the same stingy and jealous qualities which impel a person to deny a kohen his due also lead that person to deny his wife basic financial needs. Out of this state of privation, the woman may seek assistance from a man outside of her marriage. To elaborate, compulsive stinginess and jealousy are symptoms of a pathological need for control over the material world and material possessions. This irrational need causes this individual to shirk his financial responsibility to the Kohen and to his wife.

It is not a stretch to suggest that the inverse of this teaching is also true – being generous to those communal people and institutions (the kohanim mentioned by the Torah) who rely on us for financial support will lead to uplifting and strong relationships with one’s spouse and, by extension, with one’s family. The feelings of support and trust that are manifest in generosity reorient a person’s relationship with the material world and possessions. This person comes to learn that material blessing is not an end in itself; material blessing is a tool which helps us and those around us build a more holy and spiritually perfected world.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Vows Compromise Our Free Will - Parshat Vayetze 5776 - November 20, 2015

At the opening of this week’s parasha , Vayetze, Ya’akov is leaving eretz Yisrael to find refuge in Charan from his brother, Esav. He arrives at HaMakom – The Place – to sleep for the night – the place of Ya’akov’s famous ladder dream. Morning comes. Yaakov takes the stone that he slept on, makes a monument to Hashem with it and anoints it with oil. He renames the place Beit E-l – House of Hashem. The Torah then records that Ya’akov made a neder – a vow. “If the Lord will be with me and will guard me on this path that I am going and will give me bread to eat and clothes to wear and will return me in peace to the house of my father … then I will give one-tenth of all that I have to Hashem.” At first glance, the fact that Ya’akov made a vow seems inappropriate. In general, the Torah looks down on vows. Our chachamim say noder nikra cho’te – one who makes a vow is treated like a sinner. What is wrong with making a vow? Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch explains that at worst a vow elevates tr...

Project Exodus

Mrs. Shelley Kutliroff, Morah Anat Kampf and Rabbi Moshe Nachbar (not shown) are leading the Junior High School students in Project Exodus with additional guidance from Talya Tsuna and Dr. Whitney Kennon. Project Exodus is a project of and is being funded by a grant from The Jewish Community Partners. The Junior High Students at the Margolin Hebrew Academy will be studying the history of the Jews from the Former Soviet Union via interviews with many local Jewish immigrants from the FSU. Project Exodus is an attempt to permanently document and archive the experiences of Jewish immigrants to Memphis from the former Soviet Union. This project is the inspiration of Lynne Mirvis.

Responding to Disaster in Baton Rouge - Parashat Ki Tavo 5776 - September 23, 2016

This has been a unique week for the students of the Feinstone Yeshiva of the South! In a normal week, two presentations – one by Rabbi Dovid Lieberman on the topic of Free Will and another by Ambassador Yoram Ettinger on the topic of supporting the State of Israel – would have been momentous. But this was no ordinary week. Our students – Cooper Yeshiva on Sunday/Monday and Goldie Margolin on Wednesday/Thursday – partnered with Nechama-Jewish Response to Disaster in providing disaster relief to three families who suffered catastrophic loss during last month’s floods in Baton Rouge, LA. Our students hauled damaged personal effects to the curb. They removed damaged drywall, flooring, paneling and appliances. They removed many, many nails. Our students worked very hard. As a chaperone for each of these two trips (CYHSB and GMSG), I saw the students witnessing destruction first-hand. The scenes were sobering. We saw block after block of homes devoid of life – families gone and the guts of t...