FedTalks Parshas Shelach Lecha – Rabbi D Denderovicz – Transcript
At the end of this week’s parsha, the Torah commands us about the mitzvah of tzitzis, that if we would like to wear a four-cornered garment, we would have to stick on the ends, stick on its corners, tzitzis. Rashi tells us a very interesting thing: that this mitzvah is so choshuv to the Riboino shel Oilom “shekulo keneged kol hamitzvos”. By doing this one mitzvah, it is like as if we are mekayem all the mitzvos in the Torah. And this needs explanation. Because I can understand, a mitzvah that we have to do, so for example a mitzvah like fasting on the day of Yom Kippur, we have to fast, we have no choice, it is difficult to fast. I can imagine that the Torah would say that if you fast on Yom Kippur it is so choshuv it is as if you kept all the mitzvos. But a mitzvah like tzitzis that you are not obligated even to do, only if you are wearing a four-cornered garment, then you have to stick tzitzis in its corners. But you don’t have to do it, so how can it be so choshuv to the Riboino shel Oilom as if you are mekayem all the mitzvos in the Torah? You didn’t have to do it?
I once heard a beautiful pshat and it is just the opposite way of thinking and it goes as follows: because we don’t have to do it, because we are not obligated to do it, but we voluntarily go ahead and mekayem this mitzvah of tzitzis, we go ahead and buy a four-cornered garment in order to stick on the tzitzis on the corners, that is so choshuv to the Riboino shel Oilom. That shows the Riboino shel Oilom not only do you do mitzvos because you have to do it, I see you doing the mitzvos because you want to do them. And therefore, all the mitzvos that you do, it has got a whole new light to it. And therefore, by doing this one mitzvah it is as if you are mekayem every single mitzvah in the Torah. I would like to go one stage further: if you look at the actual tzitzis, there is two parts. There is a tight, knotted part, and then you have got the free-flowing part. What are these two areas? The tied part, the knotted part are the things that we are tied into, the mitzvos that we are obligated to and have no choice, but that is the small area. The main area is the free-flowing area, reflecting the mitzvos that we don’t have to do, the mitzvos that we do voluntarily. All these things that we take upon ourselves to do, that is what is so choshuv to the Riboino shel Oilom. And when we kiss the tzitzis in the morning, we kiss the free-flowing part, that is most choshuv.
Gut Shabbos