Bostoner Torah Insights: Bostoner ‘Chassidus’ in English and Hebrew: Parshas Achrei Mos Kedoshim – 12 Iyar 5785
Bostoner Torah Insights - Yerushalayim
Bostoner Torah Insights
Bostoner ‘Chassidus’ in English
Parshas Achrei Mos Kedoshim – 12 Iyar 5785
Bostoner Rebbe shlit”a – Yerushalayim
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“Every man shall revere his mother and father, and My Shabbos days shall you observe, I am Hashem” (Vayikra 19:3). This Pasuk comes to teach that the obligation to fulfill Mitzvos were not primarily designed to give honor to Hashem, but rather to benefit man to reach perfection to the extent possible. As Rashi explains, the observance of Shabbos was juxtaposed with honoring of parents to teach that if a parent instructs a child to violate the Shabbos, the child cannot listen. The same is true about all other Mitzvos.
The Meshech Chachma suggests that one could have attempted to learn this logically without the need for this juxtaposition. The rule is that if a father and mother both tell a child at the same time to pour them a drink, the child must pour the drink first for his father, since both the child and the mother have an obligation to honor the father/husband. Likewise, one could extrapolate that since both the child and the father must honor Hashem, the honor of Hashem should have precedence.
He answers that a logical inference would not be sufficient, since one could propose the following counterargument. The Pasuk says, “If you have sinned, how have you affected Him? If your transgressions multiply, what have you done to him? If you were righteous, what have you given Him, or what has He taken from your hand?” (Iyov 35:6-7). Only a man of flesh and blood who has human emotions will actually feel humiliation and shame, causing an actual degradation to his honor. One might logically conclude that it would be better for man to honor his father’s request, even if it would violate the Shabbos or any other Mitzvah between man and Hashem, since, in reality, honoring or dishonoring Hashem, via obeying or disobeying his commandments, has no actual effect on Hashem. For this reason, the Mitzvah of Revering Parents is juxtaposed to the Mitzvah of Shabbos to teach us that we can only listen to the commands of our parents that do not conflict with the commandments of our Father in Heaven.
There is a Midrash quoted by many Sefarim, but apparently, we have lost the primary source of the Midrash through the many years of exile. The Midrash begins similarly to the statement in the Gemara (Shabbos 88a), which expounds the Pasuk, “From heaven You made judgment heard, the earth feared and calmed down” (Tehillim 76:9), but has a different conclusion. Since fearing and calming down seem contradictory, the Gemara understands that initially the earth was afraid and afterward it calmed down, but what made the earth fear in the first place and what made the earth calm down? The Midrash concludes that when the earth heard the Mitzvah of Kibbud Av V’Em, the command to honor parents, it calmed down.
Perhaps the commotion of Matan Torah made the earth believe that the day of judgment was at hand, and it feared that it would be punished for disobeying Hashem’s command at Creation, “let fruit trees yield fruit” (Beraishis 1:11), which implied that the tree and the fruit should have the same taste (see Rashi quoting Beraishis Rabba 5:9). However, the Pasuk attests that “the earth brought forth trees yielding fruit” (1:12) and transgressed this command.
When the earth heard the command of “Honor your father and mother” it calmed down, because it understood that man through Torah and Mitzvos will bring about the rectification of the world, and this will, in turn, rectify all of the transgressions of all the previous generations including the sin of the earth.
We can also explain the Pasuk, “Every man shall revere his mother and father, and My Shabbos days shall you observe, I am Hashem” as the rectification of time (Shabbos), the world, from which man was created, and this will bring us to the understanding of “I am Hashem”.
May we soon merit seeing the building of the Beis HaMikdash and the coming of the Goel Tzedek speedily in our days
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