Yaakov Hibbert Presents…”if only”

Rabbi Malcolm Herman categorized people into one of the following two categories. There are some people who run their lives by an “if only” motto. If only I won the lottery then…. If only I had done a different degree… If only I had different parents….. Another group of people tick by a different slogan – “only if”. Only if I go and train will I ….. Only if I study hard….. Only if I make the decision.

The difference? Proactive versus reactive! For the reactive person life ‘happens’ to them – I am just a by-product of a series of environmental and social happenings. Hence – “If only” things had been different I would be different. These people’s attitudes and performances are often affected by external things like the weather, whereas the proactive person ends up where he is because he made those decisions. In fact everything around him is a by-product of his decisions! Consequently he frequently says, “Only if” …. will this project get off the ground. Proactive people are normally very consistent and fluctuate very little.

A philosopher once observed that in English we say that someone is ‘responsible’. When are you ‘responsible’? When you are ‘response-able’! When you make the choices to the circumstances that are around you, when you decide how to react to anything you have become responsible. Put differently – mans purpose (read: responsibility) in this world is to make conscious decisions!  Man has the gift of freewill.

In this weeks סדרה we have the Hebrew Slave who, after six years work to pay for his stealing, decides he likes the cushy lifestyle, and wishes to stay for longer. What do we do? We pierce his ear. Why? “The ear which heard at Mount Sinai ‘You shall not steal’ but went and stole should have his ear pierced”.

Now out of all the body parts that were involved in stealing, I wouldn’t have thought that the ear was particularly active. Why not the hands that stole? The legs that carried him there? Or the brain that didn’t practise what it heard at Mount Sinai?

Says the Alter of Kelm, yes it was the ears ‘fault’. The ear heard but was reactive – not proactive. The ear heard the words but did the ear allow the message to be internalised? There’s listening and there’s listening! The words can be going through the system but straight back out the other side.

R’ Shammai Zahn commented that at the end of this week’s Parshah we read, “and he (Moshe) took the Book of the Covenant and read it in earshot of the people, and they said  “We will do! And we will listen””. However in last week’s Parshah the cry of the Jews was just “we will do!”

The difference between these two proclamations is that the first was said on the second of Sivan – there had been no instructions yet about what to keep, so the Jews just accepted – to do. However in this week’s Parshah [on the fourth of Sivan] when Moshe takes out the Sefer Torah – which contained from ‘Beraishis’ until the beginning of the Parshas Yisro – which includes various Mitzvahs, and reads it to them – now they began to see the Torah and its infinite wisdom. They saw that proper understanding could not be achieved with a one off cursory hearing. ‘ONLY IF’ we hear and hear again will we begin to gain insight into this Book – “We will do and we will RELISTEN”. The reactive person would say I only heard it once therefore I am stuck, I have a shallow understanding of it. “If only” I would have heard it more times, I would be a deeper person. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Go and study and hear it again!

In fact the prelude to the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai was Yisro’s coming to join the Jewish Nation. What made him come? “And Yisro… heard all that Hashem did to Moshe and to Israel,  His people – that Hashem had taken them out of Egypt”. Asks Rashi, “What report did he hear about that he came? The splitting of the sea and the war with Amalek”. What’s bothering Rashi? The Torah has explicitly told us what he heard – ALL that Hashem did when taking the Yidden out of Egypt?

Rashi is not asking what he heard, that we know from the verse that he heard it all. But what did he hear THAT MADE HIM COME? Everybody heard the events of the exodus, but most just shrugged it off – “If only I would have been part of those awesome events then… but nebach, unfortunately I was born an Amalakeite / Emortie etc. i.e. not a Jew”. It was Yisro who heard and heard properly and therefore said, “Only if I go to the Jews and join them will I be part of those awesome events”.

The Torah was heard by all of Israel – but we were supposed to have a proactive hearing. The wise man says even when he has heard it, I’ve not fully heard it let’s hear it again. With a proper hearing the slave would never have stolen. He would have learnt and re-learnt till he made sure that he wouldn’t steal. Only if I do such and such can I ensure that I won’t steal – be proactive about what you’ve heard and learnt. We can all become great but ONLY IF…..

Good Shabbos,

Yaakov