Shabbos Kodesh

A fantastic piece from the Meshech Chochma, R' Meir Simcha of Dvinsk (bigraphy here).

The Pasuk says: וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם אֶת הַשַּׁבָּת כִּי קֹדֶשׁ הִוא לָכֶם מְחַלְלֶיהָ מוֹת יוּמָת כִּי כָּל הָעֹשֶׂה בָהּ מְלָאכָה וְנִכְרְתָה הַנֶּפֶשׁ הַהִוא מִקֶּרֶב עַמֶּיהָ - Keep the Sabbath, for it is a sacred thing for you. Those who desecrate it shall be put to death, for whoever performs work on it, that soul will be cut off from the midst of its people. (31:14)

The concept of being put to death for breaking Shabbos is odd from a logical perspective - one is commanded to break Shabbos to save another Jew's life, and even in a case where there is only a possibility of there being a danger to someone, one is still commanded to break Shabbos. So it is clear that a human life is more precious than Shabbos, but this being the case, how can we put someone to death who breaks it? Isn't this counter-intuitive?

R' Meir Simcha explains the answer beautifully. Shabbos is less sacred than a Jew, as without a Jew observing Shabbos, Shabbos essentially isn't there. As such, everything about Shabbos, including the very purpose of Creation, is solely remembered by a Jew who observes it, and this means that Shabbos is "indebted" to the Jew, and we therefore forego it to save a Jew's life.

Not so by someone who desecrates Shabbos. Such a person cuts himself off from the the connection to Hashem and the Torah, and it is better for this person to die and get atonement like that than for him to survive and continue in his ways.

So this is what the Pasuk is telling us: "וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם אֶת הַשַּׁבָּת כִּי קֹדֶשׁ הִוא לָכֶם - Keep the Sabbath, for it is a sacred thing for you", ie it is vitally important for Jews to honour and observe Shabbos, because if they don't, who will? Therefore " מְחַלְלֶיהָ מוֹת יוּמָת - Those who desecrate it shall be put to death", because someone who desecrates it has lowered themselves to below the level of Shabbos, the sign Hashem gave us. "כִּי כָּל הָעֹשֶׂה בָהּ מְלָאכָה וְנִכְרְתָה הַנֶּפֶשׁ הַהִוא מִקֶּרֶב עַמֶּיהָ - for whoever performs work on it, that soul will be cut off from the midst of its people" - this person has lowered himself beneath Shabbos by desecrating it, and has therefore alienated himself from what made his people special - that their lives were holier than Shabbos, by keeping it. Only a person who cuts himself off by desecrating Shabbos is suitable to be put to death in the name of Shabbos, so we see that it is not counter intuitive at all to put someone to death in the name of Shabbos.

This shows the level of detail in the Pasuk, that the Torah explains the mechanics of why someone is put to death for breaking Shabbos.

Geshmack!

Tribal lands

Twice in our history Hashem has said He wanted to destroy the Jews, and twice Moshe "argued" with Hashem and won: by the Golden Calf and the spies.

The Midrash (Shemos Rabbah 44:9 + Bamidbar Rabba 16:22) have 4 stage conversations with Moshe and Hashem:
1. Hashem says He wants to destroy the Jews
2. Moshe says that Hashem made a promise to the Patriarchs
3. Hashem says that He will let Moshe be the sole survivor, and fulfil the promise through Moshe

Here is where they differ - at the Golden Calf Moshe says that he cannot become a nation, as he only represents one tribe - Levi! Moshe says that all the Tribes have an assurance, at which point Hashem concedes the argument and lets the Jews live.

By the spies, this fourth point is different - Moshe says that letting the nation continue through him would be a Chillul Hashem - a desecration of G-d's Name - that people would speculate that Hashem could not sustain them in the desert, and so they died. Hashem replies that these people will have heard of His miracles in Egypt, so this would have no basis! Moshe counters by saying that perhaps people will say that the kings of Canaan were too great for the G-d of the Jews, at which point G-d concedes the argument and lets the Jews live.

R' Yehoshua Hartman points out that it is clear that the Golden Calf argument was better - life continued as normal. The spies arguments clearly wasn't so great - all the Jews of that generation died out and they wandered in the desert for an additional 39 years as a result! Why didn't Moshe use the tried and tested winning argument, that the Tribes also had an assurance?

In our Parsha, Ki Sisa, Moshe says: זְכֹר לְאַבְרָהָם לְיִצְחָק וּלְיִשְׂרָאֵל עֲבָדֶיךָ אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּעְתָּ לָהֶם בָּךְ וַתְּדַבֵּר אֲלֵהֶם אַרְבֶּה אֶת זַרְעֲכֶם כְּכוֹכְבֵי הַשָּׁמָיִם וְכָל הָאָרֶץ הַזֹּאת אֲשֶׁר אָמַרְתִּי אֶתֵּן לְזַרְעֲכֶם וְנָחֲלוּ לְעֹלָם - "Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your very Self, and to whom You said: 'I will multiply your seed like the stars of the heavens, and all this land which I said that I would give to your seed, they shall keep it as their possession forever'" (32:13)

Where is the assurance about the Tribes? And why mention the promise about the land, out of all the promises He had made to the Patriarchs?

The Gemara (Bava Basra 122a) discusses how the land was divided up, and concludes that it was divided up amongst the tribes. The Brisker Rov points out that mentioning the land is therefore a mention of the tribes, which answers a point that may be bothering the more astute reader - what assurance to the tribes were we referring to?)

Armed as we are with this knowledge, the Ramban (14:17) answers why Moshe could not winning argument that had worked so well by the Golden Calf again when he argued with GHashem about the spies - he could not mention the land - as the spies had explicitly stated that they did not want it!

R' Yehoshua Hartman points out the difference between the question and answer stage. When we asked why Moshe could not use the winning argument, we thought that the assurance was independent of anything, at the answer stage we realised that the assurance is tied and intrinsic to the land.