A Gift, Not a Grab

By Rabbi Moshe Krieger, Yeshivas Bircas HaTorah (www.bircas.org)

In Parshas Matos, Bnei Gad and Bnei Reuven came to Moshe Rabbeinu with a request. They had enormous flocks of cattle and sheep, and where they were camped in Ever HaYarden was exactly the pastureland that they thought they needed. Since Ever HaYarden was part of Eretz Yisroel they asked to be given their portion there. They were willing to go to war and even go to the very front of the army. They only wanted their wives, children, and flocks to stay behind and to inherit Ever HaYarden where their parnessah (livelihood) would come easier.

The Midrash Rabbah (22:7) treats this request as an actual flaw because Bnei Gad and Bnei Reuven were separating themselves from all their brothers and from the rest of Klal Yisrael.

The Midrash explains why this mattered so much: riches can be a wonderful gift, but only when they come as a present from Heaven, carried on the strength of Torah. If you take them by yourself, they are not a true gift and they will be lost. That, says the Midrash, is exactly why Bnei Gad and Bnei Reuven eventually lost this land — they were the very first of the shevatim sent into exile, because the land had never come to them in the right way.

But what exactly, was wrong with their request? They wanted parnassah — a place suited to their cattle, a livelihood that would come easier, giving them the peace of mind to serve Hashem better. Every person has to find where his parnassah fits, and this happened to fit them perfectly. So what was the problem? And what does it mean that a gift has to come from Heaven, on the strength of Torah? Isn’t everything, in the end, a gift from Hashem.

Rav Shmuel Yaakov Bornstein, Rosh Yeshiva of Mikdash Melech, explains that the question was never whether a person may pursue parnassah. The real question is what he is willing to relinquish to get it. Bnei Gad and Bnei Reuven were giving up being together with the rest of the nation, and serving Hashem together with the whole of Klal Yisrael is far stronger than the service of two shevatim on their own. They were also giving up a level of kedushah. Ever HaYarden carries kedushah, but not the full kedushah of the rest of Eretz Yisrael. All of that, for the sake of parnassah?

The Medrash goes on to say that parnassah comes on the strength of Torah. This  means Hashem gives a person his livelihood so that he will have the strength to learn more, to keep Torah — and the service of Hashem which is entirely bound up in that Torah. So the more a person pursues the service of Hashem, the more parnassah Hashem will give him. He loses nothing.

This is a lesson we can take for ourselves. Many people feel they have no choice: I have to make a living, so I have to leave davening early, or skip a minyan, or miss a shiur — some even feel they have to take a job someplace that pulls them away from a Torah environment. The lesson here says the opposite: do more, not less, in your service of Hashem, and Hashem will take care of the parnassah. Don’t worry about it. Parnassah comes only from Hashem, and He gives it for the sake of Torah. The more a person strengthens his Torah, the more Hashem gives him.

There was another loss here too, even more serious than the parnassah, a level of closeness with Hashem. The Abarbanel points out that when Bnei Gad and Bnei Reuven first made their request (Bamidbar 32: 16-19), they didn’t mention that Hashem would lead them in the war. They also said that their children and cattle would stay behind “in the fortified cities.” Moshe Rabbeinu repeated their proposal back but he changed it. He left out the fortified cities and spoke instead of Hashem watching over them and fighting for them. It wasn’t that Bnei Gad and Bnei Reuven had rejected Hashem — but their minds were so filled with their cattle that they didn’t feel Hashem presence so strongly. The second time they repeated their request, after Moshe corrected them, they said it the right way.

The Chovos Halevavos (3:25) warns about exactly this. Whenever a person’s focus turns too heavily toward physical, material matters, he loses his focus on the things that matter for his soul. A person needs to take some care of his body; Hashem doesn’t ask us to ignore that, but the center of his mind has to be on spiritual matters. The moment parnassah, or anything physical takes over that space, that is exactly what gets lost.  He lost a great degree of ruchnius.

He is also losing his Torah. The mishnah in Avos (6:4) says that someone learning Torah should be ready to live with the minimum. “Bread with salt shall you eat, and water in small measure shall you drink.” The Ruach Chaim explains why this matters so much. A person who isn’t ready to live this way, and his focus is on conveniences and luxuries, will find himself so involved with materialism that he won’t have time left to learn. Rav Aharon Kotler added that something even worse will happen. He won’t feel the sweetness of learning anymore. Once a person’s focus is elsewhere, that sweetness disappears. He loses his taste for learning.

There’s a story that captures this well. When Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel came from America to learn as a young bochur in the Mir, his uncle, Rav Eliezer Yehuda Finkel, the Rosh Yeshiva, watched over him closely — arranging study partners for him, making sure he learned well. He loved his years in the Mir. At one point, someone offered him an easy way to earn a little extra: a vending machine selling drinks or cakes that he would only need to check once a week. He went and asked the Rosh Yeshiva. The answer was no. A person who is learning, he was told, can have no other focus — anything else will pull him away from his Torah.

The Nefesh HaChaim (1:8) takes this a step further. The Gemara records a machlokes: Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai held that a person should learn only, with no work at all, relying on Hashem to provide; we follow Rabbi Yishmael, who says a person should work a little, conducting himself “with Torah, in the way of the world.” The Nefesh HaChaim explains what that phrase really means: even during the few hours a person spends working, he should still carry Torah in his head. A question, an insight, a vort he heard — or, as the Makneh writes, simply the thought of how wonderful learning is — all of this counts as keeping Torah together with him. The essence of a Jew, says the Nefesh HaChaim, is that he stays dovek, attached, to Hashem, by always having some Torah on his mind, even while he is at work.

There’s a well-known story of Rav Shach that shows how this applies to anyone. He once gave a talk saying that every person should spend most of his day learning. Afterwards, a hardworking man came over, troubled. “You can’t mean me,” he said. “I never learned in yeshiva, I don’t know how, and besides, I work long hours and come home exhausted.” Rav Shach asked him gently what does he do every morning. He answered: he says Modeh Ani, Birkas HaTorah, Birkas HaShachar, goes to shul, puts on Tzitzis and Tefillin, says Krias Shema and davens. “There’s your Seder HaYom,” Rav Shach told him — the order of a Jew’s day. “Go over it. Look for five minutes in the Chayei Adam, which lays out that same order with a few more details, and review those halachos each time you have a moment.” Every time he does, Rav Shach told him, he is learning — and that is how a Jew stays dovek in Hashem.

May we be zocheh that the Torah should always be our main focus.