Parshat Masai

For this week’s dvar Torah I’ll make use of ideas from the Sfat Emet.

Maybe the most striking aspect of the parsha is the list of way stations that we stopped at as we journeyed from Egypt to Israel. Why does the Torah go into such detail?

The Sfat Emet says that the lesson of the list is to teach us how to redeem the world. As Jews, we may think a rote observation of Torah’s laws suffices. But we can do much more. We can seek out the potential for good in unexpected places. The whole world was created for G-d’s glory. The places listed in the parsha were not remarkable. But when the Jews camped in these places they were elevated and even made worthy of being immortalized.

Every act that a person performs for the sake of Heaven is an act of redemption. In the language of the mystics, every object has a holy spark, called a nitzotz. However a shell hides the object’s holiness. The shell is called a klippah. By using an object for a mitzva, we break through the shell and free the spark of holiness.

The Sfat Emett (in his Torah for the year 5642) makes an observation that bears out this point. In last week’s parsha the Jews went to war against Midian. They were victorious and returned with booty captured from the Midianites. The returning soldiers were told how to kasher and purify the captured utensils (31:21). The Sfat Emet points out an oddity in the language of the pasuk. It says that Elazar spoke to the soldiers “going to war.” But these soldiers actually had just returned from the war! The Sfat Emet says that there is an important lesson here. Of course these soldiers came back from the war against Midian, but they were about to embark on a more difficult war. Each soldier was going to the struggle of fighting his greed and desire for luxury, in order to find the way to use the captured vessels for holy purposes. In the case of the soldiers they found a holy use for the captured gold (31:48, and see the Netziv to 31:53). Their example is a lesson for all of us, and it is entirely appropriate to view this task as a battle with our base instincts.